


Kochou no Sasayaki

by AnnieSegal



Series: Kochou no Saga [1]
Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Dramedy, F/F, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieSegal/pseuds/AnnieSegal
Summary: Surprises, individual and shared, begin with a ringing doorbell...Set in modern Manhattan, Megurine Luka had been a struggling singer/songwriter, and a devout fan of the multi-platinum pop-star Hatsune Miku, and has developed a strong romantic attachment to her.  Miku, in disguise, had seen Luka's every performance during Luka's stint as an artist-in-residence at a small bar and had also developed her own crush.  Luka, through Miku's machinations, is signed as the latest talent at Crypton Future Media.  Miku has agreed to foster a new artist, and Luka has been given an apartment with a mentor.Kochou no Sasayaki is book one in a multi-volume work.
Relationships: Hatsune Miku/Megurine Luka
Series: Kochou no Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681789
Kudos: 6





	Kochou no Sasayaki

“ _Kochou no Sasayaki"_

by

Annie Elizabeth Siegel

In Memory of My Father

#

I'm holding this piece of paper like even a sliver of pressure less and it will fly from my hands and catch fire, its ashes flying off to all of the corners of the world, the only copy, its contents only even conceived once, irreplaceable, even the thoughts that led to its existence vanishing into the aether, leaving me clueless and lost, my subsidized room and board gone, my packed belongings sold, and me left homeless to wither away and die.

I look down at the paper once more. I'd already been wrong twice. At least I'm on the right side of the street. And on the right street. That much I've had politely pointed out to me. At least the city's better than it was. Just a few years ago, it would have been 'Manhattan-politely' pointed out: a rather loud bit of 'corrections' and a slammed door. And quite possibly far worse than that.

Last thing I need is to ring the wrong person’s doorbell and wind up handcuffed or in a straight jacket...

...or just in an awkward pause, drawn out by the strangeness, the novelty of the situation, me wondering if I really do know how to read as the home owner looks around, wondering where the hidden cameras are positioned.

「Se no...」

3 East 9th Street...

Ok.

The chimes are music, even to this musician, even though they are that standard cliche of a tune.

"Hai!" a voice, relatively high in pitch, but in and of itself a song, cheery and sweet, energetic, bordering on being child-like. The door opens, a bass creaking that gives the little soprano melody a good balance. Before I can even look the owner -- I only know I have one flatmate, so I know she must be the other tenant -- a second before I can look her in the eye, I bow, stopping myself from being to the point of getting on my hands and knees at the last second. My head is down, with my torso parallel to my belt. Dried chewing gum, three cigarette butts, and an almost empty beer bottle. Manhattan to a 't'.

「Kon'nichi wa、Hatsune-san. I am... my name is... I'm Megurine Luka. I will be with you... I mean... I'll be living with you... I mean that I'm going to be your flatmate from now on. Please look after me... I am... I'm really looking forward to living here. With you, I mean. Yoroshikuonegaishimasu.」

I straighten, looking at the girl with whom I will be sharing this flat. A three-story two-bedroom brownstone, as beautiful as it is mundane, but it does have the first notes of a calming tune of coming home.

Could I have possibly sounded more spastically awkward?

Wait, who am I even living with?

One deep breath later...

Aqua, but not aqua, green but not green hair. 'Aquamagreen' hairin twin ponytails --'twintails' -- that I can easily see are down to her thighs. My gaze is briefly kidnapped as they dive into her Caribbean resort blue eyes. She has this cute little dot of a nose, with a slight one-too-many-sneezes upturn, and all of her has this perfect tone of cream skin. My new flatmateis wearinga completely sleeveless, mid-tone gray school uniform shirt and an 'aquamagreen' tie. All of the hems match her tresses. Wait... She's also wearing a not-quite-black, double-pleated skirt, also with that not quite blue, not quite green at the base... Wait... Are the buttons and sliders and the LCD display on her black detached sleeves really real? No, really, wait... Black thigh-high stockings with the same trim? Wait, really, please, wait! And her very slender but leanly muscled thighs and calves go into a very high pair of black, shiny leather boots that have, yet again, that same not blue, not green border, right where the base becomes very clunky, thick black soles...

Not to mention the headset.

And not to mention how perfect the '01' tattoo on her arm is.

Wait!

What does the sheet of paper say?

3 East 9th Street, Hatsune Miku...? Wait, does that really say that I will be living with her? With Miku? Really, it says that? No, please, no? Please? Wait... yes...? Yes, please? Please yes? Please, please be real? Real, and not an obsessively-accurate cosplaying fangirl? Please be real, really her? Please be her?

***

It's her. It's her! Megurine Luka! Yes, she's her! She's Megurine Luka. Yes, standing here, outside my... no, our... it's ours now... standing right outside what's now our home. It's her! That Megurine Luka who I dragged Itoh-san to see, disguised, both of us, me in that hat and a ponytail and an army jacket and torn jeans and... ugh... the sacrifices of love, I guess? Even wool socks and sandals. But it was for love, right? Of her music, I mean.

I don't need to even hear her say her name! Even before the first syllable, I knew it was... is... that it really really is her!

Ok, wait. One sec, calm down, Miku, calm down. I know, I mean, I know I want to let the dam burst and just be fireworks of glee, but... but I don't want to make her any more terrified than she is. Than I am. We're two, no, one... we’re one. At least we’re one giant duo of nerves.

She's so...radiant. How does she even exist? Her hair floats and flows around her, like silk, like a waterfall of cotton candy and bubblegum silk. Her skin, it's almost porcelain, and so perfectly firm. And I'm drowning in her eyes, pools of water you only ever see in travel brochures. The stage lights at Maxwell's barely lit her. I've seen her every live show. But here? Now? She's like her promo posters. But even more beautiful and, I mean, I own every one, and the promo pictures, too... I own each and every one of her... I own... Her? Here? Now? Daylight? Beautiful and radiant? No, she's more. Megurine Luka is so much more.

She's perfect.

Down, girl. She just spoke and she's been bowing for... how long?

What did she even say?!

Breathe, breathe. Itoh-san did say I'd be living with a new singer, to help her calmly transition to her new label...

Wait.

Back up. Two words.

New label... new label...

New...

Label?!

Didn't Luka just sign... with... us?! And she's at my doorstep, bowing, telling me each and every detail of that?! And she's been bowing for how long?!

Speak, Zero-One! Speak!

「I'm Miku... Hatsune... I'm looking forward to it too! Living with you, I mean. Kochirakoso!」

There.

Wait, I forgot to bow in return!

There.

I'm living with her now. It's official! Oh, this is big! This is big, no... this is huge!

“Pl...please come in, Megurine-san? I...I'll help you unpack? Well, maybe a tour first, so you know where your things will be unpacked?” I feel like a prince leading his... well, her... like a princess leading her prince...ess... over the threshold... like she's my bride... well, eventually, right? Wait, what? I thought I only love her music... dammit, I'm so happy I'm thinking things I believe... no, that I don't know enough to believe to be safe, for it to be perfectly safe, for it to be every single perfect thing I'd need to happen, to happen. But for now?

Oh Thirty-nine Million Gods, her eyes. I can see infinity through those eyes...

***

That first step over the threshold feels like I weigh a ton. The second like I am lighter than air. It takes me an age and a half just to undo the laces of my left boot, and another just to remove it and turn it about, so the toes face outward. Somewhere in that practiced motion, I lose my balance, landing on my rear, landing silently, silently on my rear.

Well-played. The supposedly ‘cool’ Luka I wanted to be, that air of collectedness and grace, that whole mess of all of those things that make up the mask I wear all of the time, that 'Luka' looks like she has the coordination of a spastic cow. While it does make removing the other boot easier, it makes putting the house slippers on all that much harder.

Before she can even say "Do you need help?" she has her hand in mine. It's so soft and small, dainty even. I can feel her pulse. At least it's racing like mine, almost like she and I have a shared rhythm coursing through us, so the two of us, we are one flowing, liquid racing heart, sweaty slightly, but in the best of ways. I look up to meet her smile, and I feel like I took a cannonball and a swan dive combined, drowning myself in the Caribbean sea blue. I feel myself smile back on instinct and, with a slow blink and a slower, soft but deep breath, I let her assist me to stand.

One step out of the mudroom. One step of mine forward layered with one step of hers backwards.

I’m terrified, but so is she. Cute, sweet, bubbly Hatsune Miku, always a step forward, a leap on the stage, bouncy, full of life. I’ve seen every show, my hair in a wig once I had my first-ever audition, in case I...I must have somehow known I’d be near her, even though the lights are so blinding she couldn’t possibly see a single person in the audience...

...except for front-row, dead-center.

‘Except for me’ I’d told myself, hoped and wished and prayed to myself, acting like a schoolgirl with her first-ever confession letter when Crypton signed me. Then, a wig, a bit of a lipstick change... I saw... did she see me and what I think, who I think, I saw in her? No, no:that who I saw in her was her?

‘Except for me. See only me?’ I’d asked in that split second before the lights would come up, before she’d appear, like fireworks for the crowd. Like fireworks in my mind, in my heart, in...

Somehow I managed to hold that... aspect... of how I wanted to be seen until I was home, until I could 'sing' my composure back, if only after I'd lost it, let myself take flight, like a butterfly of chaos, whispering my need for someone who couldn't possibly have seen it was me, 'singing' back to her in my own way. But now, now that she has seen me, spastic, chaotic, all composure gone, all of my masks defeated, a pure mess of liquid chaos, all I want is for her to see me, not with the glare of the lights blinding her to me being there, but to see instead...

All I've known of her was what is the way she wanted me to know her. We are who we are when we're at our worst, when we can't hide. When we can't pretend. When we're not in a costume we had to compromise on, on a stage we had constructed for us to perform as a make-believe version of ourselves.

Right?

We tour in near-silence, or at least it seems to be that way. I know, she is showing me the living room, the kitchen, the dining room...

“The basement...it terrifies me...it’s like there’s...it’s just scary...” She shivers, a chill of fear going through her. Her hand, small, soft, with its fine fingers, soft, oh so very soft, her dainty hand hasn't let go of mine. Seeing her here, her place... no, our place... seeing the 'her' she doesn't let others see, without her own hiding, lights, mask, costumes, and stage, all I can see is that there really isn't a persona to her, that on-stage, off-stage, Miku wa Miku ga eien ni.

Ne?

***

“Miku-nee?"

“Na-na-na-nani? Why do you call me Miku-n-n-n-nee? I mean...you are...you...” I want to finish that with something, something like 'older' or “more mature” or even, dear Thirty-nine Million Gods, anything at all, but “you are you” is all I can get out. No lights, no lack of lights, not at all hidden, not in a back corner, it's like she isn't her music. She's more. Seeing her fall, seeing her completely as uncomposed as I have been this entire three minute eternity, I know I was right to let myself fall into those pools of blue forever, and to let her cotton candy waterfall rinse me off and clean up.

“Because you are my senior at work, but 'Miku-sempai' just feels...”

Did she just trail off? Luka? Cool, calm, collected, mature, graceful Luka just trailed off?! So cute. I give her hand a gentle squeeze. All of those dance lessons paid off just for me to twirl around her without letting go. I'm not letting her look away, not letting her see anything except me, and I feel it. She's hurt, somehow, and not just in the way she's let her songs bleed the valve. I let the silence, as awkward as it is, calm us both. With a very gentle second squeeze of her hand in mine, I stay silent, give this scherzo of a day a few rests.

“...because you feel it.”

“Feel like it, you mean?”

“...”

Another silence, another blessed, evil, glorious silence. I know I am staring at her thin but pouty lips again. I can feel the lenses of my eyes adjusting to see her so tempting button of a nose, and those blue pools I want to drown in, the pink hair I want to tease my fingers through, as I hear the softest intake of breath, a sound a singer alone can hear. Thirty-nine Million Gods, let her explain?

"You just seem it, for now, while I don't know anything. And I don't know anything. Except that you seem like you'd be a very good sempai."

"Luka-chan?" My smile widens as hers does. I feel her hand tighten on mine. Please, never let go? This moment is simply perfect. Nervous, blissfully nervous, but happy. Hundreds of thousands of emotions in that little, silent constricting of her long, slender fingers that feel just as silk soft as her hair. "Luka? Compromise? No honorifics here? 'kay? But you do have to let go."

"No honorifics here? Hmm. Well, okay, I can live with that... I guess... Miku-chan!"

"Lukaaa!"

"But what'd you mean by 'you do have to let go'?"

I want to take that back, to run off and have her hand in mine again.

"Of my hand." One last squeeze of her soft, soft skin, feeling her long, slender fingers in mine. One last, brief little moment connected to her. "Let go of my hand. Or do you want to only know where the kitchen and living room are? The couches are comfy, but not enough to make into a bedroom. Ready, Luka? Se no!" One more little squeeze. Holding her is too addictive.

***

I feel like a kite as she gives me a playful yank, her feet thumping like a bass drum as she runs up the stairs -- even after she had taken off her boots, her thigh-highs-clad feet now wearing a simple pair of house slippers that matches the aquamagreen of her hair. I do have to look up just a bit to see the next step.

"White and green shimapan? Cute choice..."

"Luka!"

"What?"

She adjusts her skirt in a fit of trying to cover up, but it's probably a bit exaggerated for show than anything else. There are two doors next to me. One has a whiteboard with a marker that has a leek for a cap. In the top-left corner of it is a little butterfly, and I don't even have to guess who drew it. The upper-right has 'Us' written over itself so many times it has started to burn into the board. Next to it is 'Them'. It looks like a score, but I can't tell which sport she follows. Whatever it is, it's low-scoring. I'm betting she's a baseball fan -- basketball is too high-scoring, football can't have a 3 to 2 score, and hockey? No way. Plus, that would be incredibly awkward, especially if she heard me. The rest of the board is taken up by the words "New Roommate Day."

The door opens, with Miku somehow already inside.

"Boo! There's a shared bathroom, so I snuck through."

She is all laughter and energy, like the entire Starbucks chain dumped all of their espresso into her veins. Fireworks and cheer. I take one step forward as she backpedals a single pace. One wall is all but covered in posters of the other members of Crypton Media, photographs and concert merchandise and backstage passes. One strangely enough is from Maxwell's. It's of me, when I was their "artist in-residence". From the night I was first...

Curiouser and curiouser.

The window leads to a fire escape and has reinforced latches, but it also looks like she uses it regularly. On the left is a small plant that has a "Hello My Name Is" sticker upside down on its terracotta pot, identifying it as 'Aubrey II.' Silently, I groan at the terrible joke. I also notice that to the right is a floor to ceiling bookcase brimming with manga. Some titles I recognize, but many I don't.

'Ghost in the Shell' next to 'Akira' and then 'Strawberry Panic', 'MariMite', the complete 'Sailor Moon', then 'Chobits', 'Gunslinger Girl', and a good dozen or two others. While it's not a greatest hits of manga, there's more than enough variety to show her tastes are certainly broad. But there are some collections I recognize immediately that make it seem she has a specialization in one genre specifically, and while most don't care for it, it's not for them anyway. It's for people like me. And people like her, it seems. 'Girl Friends' stands out a little, and 'Sasameki Koto' stands out even more still. 'Asagao to Kase-san'? And 'Citrus' too? Could she be...?

That's... at least something to puzzle about.

It wouldn't matter, except to say that it'd matter a ton. Worst case, she has a secret girlfriend I'll overhear from wherever the hell my bedroom will turn out to be. So long as she doesn't mind overhearing me? I guess? Great, I'm gonna have to be extra extra fucking quiet when I... occasionally... uhmm... self-indulge. I don't need that one specific hellish kind of awkward hitting me.

Again.

For now, it's theory. Who knows, a friend could have gotten her hooked on the romance side of the genre and it's a secret guilty pleasure and she's straight. Ok, worst-case scenario has just become that Miku, my housemate, is bisexual-Miku, my housemate, and that she is "wake the neighbors" loud. Well, hearing her 'sing' is a part of living with her. And loving her, right? Just think, Luka: you'd be the one person in the world to hear... those... 'songs'.

Moving on...

It's a matched set. A second bookcase, exactly the same as the one by the window, positioned along the wall next by the door to what I am guessing is the bathroom, barring there being other secret passages in this place. Hmm... anime. Let's see. The adaptations of 'Strawberry Panic', 'Citrus', 'Sasameki Koto', 'Aoi Hana'... yeah, she's either the world's most shoujo-ai obsessed straight teenager, or she's definitely at the very least a member of the "guys only on Leap Year Day" contingent of 'unstraight'.

As for the bed...

But of course. A king-sized princess' canopy bed, a gigantic affair with an overstuffed duvet in a fairy tale red velvet, replete with white silk lace. All that's missing is Sleeping Beauty herself, just in front of me, having gone from bouncing on her heels to standing in that ridiculously stereotypical but stereotypically adorable 'nervous girl' pose, one foot planted while the other pivots at the toe, her hands knit behind her back, head tilted almost straight down as her eyes look up at me.

I'm drowning again. I would rob a bank for those eyes, that's the sway they're starting to have on me. Well, not quite yet on robbery, but definitely taking the pens that are chained to the tellers' desk. Bank petty larceny in the first degree?

"Well?" her sweet song of girlish anticipation, giddy and shy, exploding and restrained, all in one cute little drawn out note.

"Well, what's in that other door? A secret passage to the kitchen for late-night snacking, or maybe..."

"Don't!" she snaps. Ah, so this is what Angry Miku really sounds like? "Don't... go in there. You never know what you'll find..."

"Or who?"

Silence. I said it, and now there's no unringing that bell. The song's now the rapid singing of Miku's silence. Bad End, Luka? Laughter? Hers?

"Yeah, about that? It's just... how is a cute girl cute without a little mystery, a few secrets to give her some depth and roughen the edges a bit?" Her laughter resumes, a cute little C-D-E-G-C scale of mirth. Happy End, it seems. For now. "It's just clothes. The everyday stuff. C'mon, I'll show you the best part of this place?"

That small hand, again wrapping its dainty, thin fingers in mine, giving me a tug. Yet again, I've fallen for, well, from her and for her, and again it's only landed me on my rear. Yet again, she picks me up, like I am just a feather blown about by the winds of her melodies. Aside from being thoroughly humiliated twice in less than twenty minutes, I couldn't be happier.

The door next to the Closet of Never Entry, or is it the Closet of No Exit, leads to the most incredible bathroom ever devised. Marble floor and half-height panels on the walls, white and moderately veined in black, and tactful battleship gray paint. I can tell the floor is heated, but at the moment that's turned off. The toilet is, well, a toilet, white with a black seat. There are towel racks basically everywhere and stocked with the fluffiest ultra-high thread count bath sheets, towels, washcloths and hand towels. A rain shower big enough to fit a major motion picture studio, with frosted glass up to what would be the base of her shoulders. Also known as 'just high enough to still obscure my breasts' should I stretch. It's as I turn around that I see that the room is twice as big as I'd thought. There, like a lurching monster, was a proper after-shower soaking tub. And I'd thought civility was dead.

"Don't tell me, my room is through there?"

Silence that gives way to a soft chuckle.

"What?"

"You said don't tell you, so I can't!"

"You're such a little kid."

There it is, that pout I'd sworn was stagecraft. "Little?" Of course, she stands on tiptoe for that. And right into more notes of girlish mirth. "Well, you grow old if you grow up. Everyone knows that. All thirty-nine of 'em." A blind man could tell I've arched an eyebrow. "I only count to thirty-nine except for calories, coins, and chocolate. Then it's zero, as many as possible to buy as much as possible -- calories, coins, and chocolate."

I can't help but agree, my own laughter and hers this aria of the ice breaking between us.

"So, it's here? My room? You can tell me."

The door opens to show a good number of boxes, a bedframe, but no mattress. Boxes, more boxes, and even more boxes. The room itself is the same size as hers, with the exact same furniture -- the same bookcases, the same desk, the same canopy-style frame for my mattress -- when it arrives. It's just empty. No plant, I notice. Some seeds need to be planted by oneself. Something... something... something is missing. I start to open boxes, navigating the labyrinth of cardboard.

"Books? Check."

"Manga? Check."

"Clothes? Check. The other clothes? Check. Night clothes? Present. Anime? Yep. The other other clothes? Yep. Decorations? All here. Wait. Where's my...?"

***

Watching her go through her belongings is showing me a side of her I thought would take a few days to see. Luka in a frenzy, letting herself go, letting herself fly a little, letting her shields down just a whisper of a sliver of a degree. It's actually kind of cute seeing her panic grow, stopping the wall from rebuilding. But it's also kind of scary, seeing that frenzy, that panic, as it grows and grows. It's a lot like a certain zero-one I know. Kinda.

She all but shoves me aside, running through the boxes, through the maze, running around me, through the bathroom, full breakneck speed into and out of my room. Then the clatter of a scherzo of footfalls down the stairs. I'm running after her as she flies outside, as she's saying only "Guitar" in a louder and louder yell.

"Wait," I shout out. "Wait! Luka!"

My hand grabs her arm, yanking her with all of my might, away from the cab. She lands behind me, on her rear, winded. Somehow I land atop her, my arms pinning her shoulders to the sidewalk.

"Looks like you came out on top..." she says, and all I hear is that defensive, chuckled attempt at a joke. I'm atop her, still pinning her, drowning in her ocean eyes again, seeing her, seeing only her. Her face, her waterfall of cotton candy hair, that smile, that little nose, and those eyes. But in seconds my vision is blurry. I feel a tear flee my eyes, and I just know it's landed on her cheek. Another, right where the last one landed. Another, right on her nose.

"Don't do that!" I yell at her. I don't know why. All I see is her, all I hear is her, all I see is her and that cab, and all I hear is my sniffle and her joke and the horn, blaring three ugly notes, a horrid bass, loud, so very, very, very loud. "Don't do that! Don't you ever dare do that! Don't run out, don't you ever, ever run out on me, don't you ever dare ever, ever, no matter what, no matter what! You don't get to ever run out on me, not once, not ever! Luka, you don't know. You don't know anything! You don't know a single, single thing! You idiot!"

And with that, the next thing I know, bed, balled up, crying, hearing her laugh, hearing that car horn, hearing both, seeing her, seeing only her, seeing only her like I have since I saw her the very first time, with her guitar and her perfect, Divine voice, singing to my heart, mixed with that car horn, loud, so very damned loud, both at once, her music, her voice, that car horn, all at once, this discordant, Satanic symphony.

And my imagination and what I saw become one. I wasn't in time. Luka was hit. Luka, her voice, her music, her song, those eyes, that horn. I was too late. I must have been. I was! I am sure I heard her final song, I'm certain. I saw... I saw... I heard it, I saw it. The scizzura of her song, of her life. I was too late. Her last word and her last notes drowned out by her body hitting the hood and glass, blood, three little droplets of blood on her cheeks.

I was too late!

Fade to black...

***

Knock, the door, heavy, rings out in her room like the single hit of an orchestra's bass drum, an echo from hell, hitting off of every surface of her room. Knock says the door, met only by hollow silence. "Miku, I'm coming in." The door practically opens itself, giving me entry, like it was Fate, like I was meant to come in and violate her most private space, entering her with silent footsteps, slowly, slowly, one step somehow louder than the next, one step layered over the next, with her silent sniffles and her bawling tears atop my footsteps, a song of not one, but two steps layered as I advance physically, as she retreats mentally, emotionally. I invade her more, my feet quieter but louder, both at once, both the same as I am slowly taking the sacred privacy from her most personal sanctum.

"Miku, I'm coming" is all I say, laying my guitar next to her bed, kicking off my house slippers. I broke her heart, I know, and I did worse than that. I broke her, I broke Hatsune Miku's soul. "Miku, I'm sorry for what I did. It was stupid. I was stupid. I'm safe, sweetness. You weren't late, I'm here, I'm real. You were right on time, you saved me, Ohime-sama. You got me from the mean, evil cab. I'm really, really here, not a ghost, not a nightmare, not a hallucination. I'm here. Ohime-sama no baka..."

She sniffles and the scene is just as much a cliche as it is true, real, pure New York City. All I can do is chuckle as she wipes her tears... and her nose... on her forearm. I reach over to the nearer of the two nightstands and grab the tissues. I hand her one and hear the truly ugly symphony of bawling tears and the out of tune horn of her nose. I giggle and her tears stop, her sniffles stop, and I get this look, this look that takes no effort at all to burn into my memory.

"Meanie" she giggle-sings in response, followed by this minuet of my giggled response, then chuckles, a duet of small, the louder, fuller, bigger, louder, fuller, bigger laughter as she wipes her tears with her forearm again. Another tissue, another loud nose-honk, and we shift from broken fears to healing, brick at a time, mending as her waking nightmare, and as my own, start to heal each of us, healing the 'We' that the two of us are forming. "You know," she says, still blessing me with the sweet notes of her private song, "We're both idiots."

"Yes, but you're the bigger idiot."

"No, Luka-chan is the bigger idiot!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

I give in, tickling her ribs, playing the 'Mikuphone' for the sweet, glorious, wondrous sounds of C-D-E-G-C arpeggio after arpeggio, tickling her from her underarms down, one hand at her ribs, the other to her slightly exposed tummy. She starts to shift a little, my tickling increasing as her squirming grows. I slow down a little, a little more, bringing her down gently, letting her regain her breath, her composure, the private side of Hatsune Miku shown to none... I hope... showed to no one except me. Think of me, Hatsune Miku. Think of only me, see only me?

It's a wish... no, it's a prayer... a real, true prayer to be answered in the days to come. Benzaiten-sama, please play us both these songs we... that Hatsune Miku and I... have played today on many, many days, happily adding to it, letting it grow more rich and complex, in laughter and tears, grow simpler, with quiet moments, a happy and sad melody in the days ahead?

I know that squirm... I was unimaginably mean... Gomen ne, Miku-chan.

"Luka?" her sweet voice, not quite begging, but also not sad. Gentle, softly asking.

***

"Luka? Can we restart?"

Her long, thin and very nimble fingers are attacking my ribs like a scherzo on a piano, and all I can do is laugh, all I can do is squirm. She doesn't know, and she can't know. Unless she already does know? Zero-one, now is not the time for... certain ideas... But I... I really do want it to be that time, I mean I've been as good a girl as I can, I've been as good a 'me' as I can. Is it good enough? Here goes.

"Luka! Stop it! Stahhhhp!" A single deep breath. A second, to regain whatever composure I can. A third, for luck. Ok. "Luka, I mean can we restart us? I mean, this is important and... ok, it's really really important. Crucial. Vital. Just... it's getting late already and... let's get ready for bed, and I'll take the floor. You're bed isn't here yet, so you can have mine."

"Nope."

"You mean you want the floor?"

"Nope. You're getting colder..."

I swallow, and hard. I can feel a little dizzy, a little queasy, a bit sweaty. Not necessarily only in the bad way, yes, but talking, right here, right now, is the most important thing in the world, at least to me, at least right now, right here it is. I nod as I ask, "You mean, you want us to... uhmm... to share the bed?"

"Bingo. Treat it as a sleepover. Tickles are done, Luka's honor. Now's change for bed time, right? Then, let me guess, secrets, whispered as if all of world was trying to listen in? Such a little kid, but I love the idea. Even if it was mine."

"Was not."

"Was too." I knew, somehow, that she'd say it, that that playful side of her would make her want a sleepover, that she'd want everything since I ran inside to unfold exactly as it did. It's like she can read me, my mind, my soul, as if I was sheet music. Caprice for Miku in A-minor. Or something similar. I guess.

Changing for me has always been easy. Changing clothes. Changing me. The look on her face as my foot emerges from the bathroom is almost that of a kid on Christmas morning who already knew, well in advance, what her presents would be. I only hope this 'gift' doesn't leave her wanting more than I am ever, ever able to give. I live to please, to bring smiles, to lift people up, able to use my voice when they can't use their own, as if I sing as them, not just to or for them. I actually love that, the look of understanding and relief when someone realizes that my songs can be their own, my anthem can be their own.

But here, now, seeing that look of joy at seeing how I dress for bed, it's... it's better. I can't figure it out, I'm lost trying to figure it out, and I'm giving up trying to figure out how it's better for her than me matching her hopes brings her joy. I know I seem like a kid, that my voice is high, that some find it grating when they hear me singing for the first time. But here, seeing her joy at seeing me as me, not in a costume, not singing or dancing, but simply putting one foot in front of the other, matching some set of expectations she has.

Granted, me, the one who is 'her' 'Ohime-sama' dressed in white stockings that have a very frilly... ok, ridiculously frilly border less than an inch from a lace white skirt with an embroidered bottom hemline, dressed in a white bodice top that looks like it has a corset, but doesn't, with sleeves that stop midway down my upper arms, trimmed in the most delicate of lace, and a pair of fingerless white silk gloves held in place by a simple silver ring at the base of my middle finger -- bridal gauntlets, I've heard them called -- me, dressed like this, well... ok, it's true... 'her' 'Ohime-sama' certainly does at least dress to match her nickname for me.

I can't quite place the look on her face. It looks like it's equal parts joy, approval, and understanding. It's like I'm sheet music to her, but sheet music I wrote for me, a private little Sonatina in C-major, a Nocturne for every 'Ohime-sama' out there, if 'out there' only means 'in here', in this bedroom. 'Our' bedroom, if only for the night...

If only...

"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting this..." I say, seeing her in a very simple pair of pajamas, plain white but with a pink animal print. "Octopussy... no, octopusses? Octopi? Pink octo... octopussespussipi... I bit my tongue!"

She snorts and giggles and chortles, trying to use the back of her hand to stop, before the two of us are one again, in this weird way we have been coming apart and back together and both and neither.

"My hair. It's because of my pink hair in the wind. A friend of mine said I look like a weird pink octopus, so to tease her I had these printed up. I meant to give them to her, but they... well, I ordered the wrong size. On her, it'd... she's much more, uhmm, yeah... more of her is in her chest than elsewhere. It'd basically crush her ribs."

I can't help but laugh. "Woman smothered to death by octopus pajamas. Film at eleven."

"Isn't that past your bedtime?"

Playfully I smack her arm. "My bedtime is my bedtime, so only I get to set it. Can you give me a hand? And please don't clap?" I point to the height of the mattress, and to the stepstool on the floor, right at the side of the bed. Her long, slender fingers fit so perfectly around my own, and with a one, two, my foot presses into the carriage step stepstool at the base of the side of the bed. "Thank you kindly, good sir" is all I say.

"「Miku wa Miku ga eien ni desu」... do you need a nightlight? Really? Wait, is that what the candle really... Ohime-sama... really? Hai, hai. Dozo. Are you afraid of the dark? Or is it for the whole 'princess' motif?"

"I'm afraid what's in it. There's monsters under the bed. A wolf in the closet, but there's no woodsman anywhere. A wicked stepmother in the empty spot in the manga bookcase, and the three stepsisters are on the shelves, hiding behind the anime boxes. The desk is really the spinning wheel. And the Beast hides outside the door from the hall."

"And your Prince Charming?" she says, climbing into bed next to me. She's still holding my hand, like I'll suddenly be ripped from her grasp. I feel something in her stir, her heartbeat starting to increase, like she's seconds away from a wrong word, or just a wrongly delivered word, or even just a poorly timed sigh, could kill her.

"You mean my 'Princess' Charming?" My voice is quiet, almost silent, like I'd plucked a feather to tickle at her ears. "You knew? How? I've... there's never been anything in a magazine, and I'm certain if there was something online I'd know. Probably."

"Never let them see your bookcases, Ohime-sama. You're only as discrete as what you let people see you read. Or watch. You're different now. That 'start over' you wanted? I knew you weren't being yourself. I knew you were being 'you'. That you were being 'concert Miku' because I'm new, and new is scary, so you retreated inside your 'concert Miku'."

"How did you know? How could you possibly, possibly know? When did you know?"

"The first tear that fell."

"Luka?"

"When you saved me from being part of that cab's windshield. 'Concert Miku' can cry on demand only with a little hidden clove oil under the eyes. That first tear. I do it too."

"You have clove oil hidden in your skirt?"

"No, silly. No. I have a part of me that only the most special, most trusted, most treasured get to see. And I'm not seeing you as you by any form of accident, am I? I mean, if you wanted to be 'Concert Miku' until I lived here a little longer, I can understand that. And if you want me to leave in the morning, send for my stuff, and never attend another show, I will never tell a single soul, not even strangers who would react with 'Miku... who?', illiterate strangers in some far, far away land with no Internet, television, or radio, I wouldn't tell even them. On that," she says, and I feel her pulse, her calm, even pulse as those long, slender fingers squeeze mine, bringing my shallow breathing, the weight in my chest, and the thunderous Madman's Scherzo back to even, slow, calm peace. "On that, Luka's Honor."

"How do you do that?" I find myself asking her, not even knowing what she'll say, because I know not only will it be what I need her to say, but it will also be pure, pure truth. Undistilled, honesty in liquid form. "How?"

"How do I be honest?"

"How is it you do that? How you make it all, all of it, how is it you just make everything sound just so simple, even the most complicated and obfuscated things, you makes them simple and harmless, safe and warm and cuddly and perfect, just by simple little nervous sentences given to me, each word just a freely given gift but still my treasure, all of them. How?"

"I must be hitting poetry every time I do, poetry I don't... I don't try to make it poetry. I don't. I promise. All I do, all I'm doing, is being me, saying things the way I say things. Do you have someone else, someone you can be you, not 'Concert Miku' but 'real Miku' with?"

"Well..."

"No?"

"There's one person, yeah, well two, it's two people if I can include you."

"If Ohime-sama wishes, yes. Yes, I promise you this much. I promise never to judge you for anything you do by accident, never to lie, to pick you up off the mat after mistakes, limitlessly, I'll just and only try and help. Just one thing: do you snore?"

"No, I don't snore, thank you very much! What about you, do you have someone..."

"Single."

"Luka! I meant, well, do you have someone like you're being for me, but for you?"

"Two, if you'll be one of them."

"Ok, but only if you don't snore."

"'Well, how is a cute girl cute without a little mystery, a few secrets to give her some depth and roughen the edges a bit?' You said it yourself. Oyasumi, Ohime-sama."

"Ohyawn... Oyasuminasai." My eyelids feel like the covers of a picture book at the end, after Prince...no, Princess... after Princess Charming has saved Cinderella. I fall asleep faster than I ever have, and deeper than I ever may ever again.

***

The sword is heavy, weighing my left hand, my left arm, my entire left side down, but I swing onward. The shield is heavy, my right arm making me the whole of my right side enough to balance me. A robe of vines, thorny, poisoned, growing back, hacked away, growing again, thicker, slashed down. Over and over, on and on, I slash my way as a draconian beast burns some away to try and drown me in flames, blocked somehow by the kite of metal strapped to my arm.

Coward.

As I approach, the tangle of thorned rope vines, replete with poisoned barbs, tangle my ankles, stabbing into me, piercing me, pumping me full of venom. But it doesn't work. I have a capsule in my mouth, waiting for the perfect moment to crush it and to fill the space beneath my tongue with a gushing rush of an antidote and a panacea combination, thanks to a certain redheaded, incredibly, bordering on ridiculously, busty faerie godmother's talents. The poison reverses course, flowing from my bloodstream and back into the floral growths, making just enough loosen and fall to the stone path, blackened and dead. My strength returns just barely enough, my balance returns just barely enough, my health returns just barely enough to press on.

And that's when I feel it.

Like a warm coat on a freezing, viciously freezing winter day, I feel a set of armor, if it can be called that, wrap around me, protecting me, shielding me, enveloping me in a sense of single-mindedness boosted by a factor of ten times a factor of twenty times a factor of a million's million infinities to urge me on, to give me power and purpose, to focus my mind, my heart, my body, my soul to slice another vine, to chop through more thorns, to raise my shield and roll from the beast's nearly constant barrage of flames. To stab and stab and stab as the seemingly unending wave of orcs and goblins appear, each brigade replaced by another, all giving their lives to protect that Black Dragon.

It has to be from Her, from the Princess atop that Tower ahead of me, my goal, my one place where I am meant to be, a place where my mind, my body, my heart, my soul, my all urges and pushes and guides me to reach, so full of purpose that, even entangled and stabbed, the vines turn midnight black, they wither, they fall and, with their venom reversed, they hit the stone path and disintegrate into a brief puff of slayed dust, like a scene from countless vampire movies, before the stillness becomes just enough of a breeze to scatter them to the farthest corners of existence.

Another explosion of roared flames hits my shield, my arm moves automagically, as if this cloak of protection can see for me, can move for me, offering layer upon layer, armor atop armor. That is, until the Black Dragon, spewer of liquefied fire, grows a second head, then a third, and a fourth, a fifth head, a sixth, then a seventh, finally an eigth additional head. A Stygian demon straight from the mind of Hieronymus Bosch, its roar a symphony of discordant horror played in nine keys, like I am in some sadistic sociopathic sandplay. Every head I chop off is immediately respawned, like a madman's symphony with a schizoid conductor. The shrieking roar rings in my ears, feedback both bass and treble, but I don't shake. I don't give it any quarter. I don't buckle. One step forward, one more, another, and another step more, my arm not tiring, not even for a moment, the cape of warmth, the tabbard of faith, the armor of trust fuel me and I can see it, my goal, a door, a wooden door locked with a thousand padlocks, and a thousand bolts, hinges of adamantite, but in front of it a gate of steel. Between the two is a key, dangling by a ribbon in a color that only serves to fuel me to press on, the one key I need, suspended by a narrow ribbon of silk, not quite aqua, not quite green. And on the body of that precious key is a simple engraving, embossed in the cotton candy pink of my hair, a priceless key upon which is inscribed 「初音 ミク 」.

I'm coming, my love. I'm coming, Ohime-sama. I'm almost there.

Fuck! I let my guard down and...

Awake...sweating and panicking, heart a drum machine on meth, vision narrowed to see the difference between dream and reality, my every sense screaming out to me, even without any real input to trigger them. I feel... something... in my hand. Soft, warm, peaceful. This bed is too comfortable, too soft, too... perfect... than to belong to anyone else, to anyone else at all except for the one, the only, the singular occupant of all of my wildest hopes. I look over to see her face, smiling ever so slightly, the twin rivers of her aquamagreen hair neat, even asleep her hair is pristine. Miku is laying on her back, legs straight, her right arm folded over her waist, her left bent so that her hand is by her shoulder.

And despite all I must have thrashed last night, her small hand, with its slender fingers, nails painstakingly and meticulously manicured, her perfect hand has not let go of mine. I have to be absolutely careful here, so very silent, so very slow, so incredibly cautious as I move my head and my torso to do one thing I have literally almost died to do. I give Miku another little sighed smile as I study the features of her face. Her little nose, with its oh so very small, oh so very subtle upturn, her button of a nose that cries out for a little 'boop' or a light peck... later... please, please later...? Her soft lips, smiling gently, as she is lost in whatever dreams a faerie tale princess dreams. Long eyelashes and nearly obsessively maintained eyebrows. And her small ears, ears that let in every sound around her and hear the music in all of it. I don't look beyond her perfect face, not yet. I haven't yet earned the right. Soon? Please, Ohime-sama, read me, here, beside you, ready for you, waiting for you, waiting for you and me to be 'We'.

Until then? I lean over, maybe at an inch every five seconds, if that. My lips plant but one slow but soft, chaste kiss upon the knuckle of her ring finger before laying back down, my head returning to the softest pillow I have ever known, still staring at her face, smiling not to her, and not smiling for her, nor even smiling from her. No, I'm smiling for us, for the sake of 'We' that seems to be slowly taking root.

Right?

***

My mind is in a haze, like I've somehow become drunk and also drugged. But I don't drink. Not because I'm too young. Well, ok, I drink a small glass of sake, chilled, as a little celebration after each show. No more than four sips. Ever. And like any smart girl... or at least any girl with any sense at all... like any girl these days... like any girl who wants to defend herself... I never let my drink be out of sight. I clutch it in my hand and I keep it at least enough in my vision to know that if it even looks suspicious to put it down.

Did I eat an apple or something?

There's no spinning wheel in the room, is there?

Wait. Hold on. I hear something. Well, not really 'hear'... I... I cannot... dammit, I cannot move! What about speaking...? My mouth is so dry that it hurts. It's like my tongue is cemented in place and every droplet of saliva is being dried, with cotton taking its place. My eyes are absolutely burning, and I'm unable to move my eyes, not one bit, not at all, fixed to stare straight ahead, and I cannot even open my eyelids. All I can smell is the nauseating stillness of a sterile, empty, dead chamber mixed with the musky malodorous stench of stone, mortar, and moss. My skin is registering that I am on a plush, silk bed, but with some form of walls at my head and feet, and at my sides. The warmth of how I am encased reminds me, strongly reminds me, completely and utterly reminds me of a certain faerie tale. I cannot place what is in my head, but I know what it is, what I am feeling from within to without, scalp to soles.

A black dragon, a breather of fire, with heads that grow and regrow, respawning almost as fast as they are chopped off. Vines. I can feel them, thorned ropes of dark green with poisoned black barbs as lethal as they are terrifying. But I'm not scared. I've had this dream before, many times, many identical, identical times. My knight... no, my Prince... Princess Charming... I know that the one scaling this tower of nightmares and myths is a she. I do all I can. I breathe as deeply as this... experience... is allowing me to, and my thoughts, my heart, they both go through me, through this casket that I know is ivory-white without ever seeing it, and I send all of my thoughts, all of my heart, to the Princess Charming who fights, step after step, slash after slash and hack after hack. I send all of my thoughts and all of my heart to be her added armor, to envelop her in peace and strength and protection.

"'Ohime-sama' is here, Princess Charming. Fight slow and smart. Don't rush. Don't attack out of anger. I will be here, right here, and I will be waiting, right here, just as I am right now, this moment, this minute, this second."

And with that, my eyes flutter open. She held my hand all night, and I am again, again, ever and evermore again drowning in her eyes. She has the most peaceful smile, like all is well, despite the day before. I know, without a single tell, that she slept not entirely uncomfortably, and there's some peace in that, somehow.

With a slight chuckle, I very softly say, "You know, there's a penalty to those who would kiss a princess without permission..." There it is, that little giggle that matches mine. Not note for note, but as a counter, a little arpeggio in the same key to balance my little melody. "Perfect..." is all I say before I hear It, that mechanical monstrosity, loud and intrusive and completely shattering the entire moment of bliss.

But, in a final attempt to make the scene last, Luka says, "Ohayou, Miku-Ohime-sama..." She tries to stretch without letting go of my hand, but at the last moment, that little link breaks. All I can think to do is let out a silent prayer that it will form again tonight, or at least on a 'tonight' in our near, please very, very near future.

***

Breakfast was as uneventful as breakfast could be: a bowl of rice for each of us, although a good set of giggles were shared, a little dance of notes as we realized we both have some coffee with our sugar and cream. From there, however, we made our way to Crypton Media's headquarters, and the look on Luka's face was like the first ten years of a kid on Christmas morning combined.

"It's... it's... it's huge!" she says the moment she is through the revolving door. She is right, though. Crypton is gigantic. The lobby is so massive that it feels like it would fit a basketball game, with a granite floor with the letter 'C' in gold just as we go inside. It's like entering a tremendous cave with polished black stone walls. All the way in the back is a receptionist's desk, with my latest concert on an infinite loop above the secretary's head, being played on mute.

"Hatsune-san! Okairi! And this...this is Me... Megu... Meguri..."

I greet her with a nervous calm, Luka gives a slight bow.

「Hajimemashite. Atashi no namae wa Megurine Luka desu. Kyou wa, atashi ga Crypton no jin desu. Domo yoroshiku onegaishimasu.」

I cannot help but let out a quick little laugh at the exchange as Luka finishes her introductions.

"Luka, 'Shana-chan' isn't, well..."

"What Miku-chan wishes for me to inform you that I am not a human being. To the contrary, I am a robot or, specifically, I am an android. While I am programmed to be capable of speech and my rudimentary tasks, I am not capable of processing new data without the supervision of the technical resources' director."

"Although she makes excellent tea, and is very adept at playing chess..." I say to both with a soft smile, wanting to make Luka feel a little more at home at her, well, new 'home-away-from-home'. It backfires and I would swear that Luka slips into an English accent.

"Well, I... I can imagine that that would... that you would be adept at..."

"Ara..." Shanabot says, "...do forgive me. I have been instructed to provide directions for you to tour the facilities, unless the orders that the technical resources director has given to me are rendered moot due to an override by Miss Hatsune Miku-san, in which case I shall revert to my other tasks."

All I can do is let out a quick arpeggio of a giggle, and that's when I notice it: Luka and I laugh in the same C-natural key. Even the smallest of laughs are C-D-E-G-C, and our bursts are variations of a C-D-E-G-C-G-E-G theme. My smile is very briefly blocked by my hand, but I can't hold it, exploding into an absolute scherzo. "Ok, Shana-chan, you won. Next lunch is on me. She's as human as I am, Luka. Or at least as human as I think I am. Or as you are... or... you get the idea."

Luka looks from me to the receptionist and back. And then back to me. "You... you... you... I should..." Then those fingers, long and slender, are at my ribs, dancing as she plays me like a fiddle, tickling me from hell to heaven and back. She keeps going as I squirm to avoid her 'revenge'... and to meet it... I try to hide it, but I wind up biting my thumb and a rather... private... and certainly inappropriate set of noises escapes me, my legs move a little closer, my thighs trying to...

"Nghh... Lukaaa!"

She must have noticed my weakness... well, one of them, at any rate!

"Gomen ne, Miku... gomen. Can we have that tour?"

I exaggerate the act of catching my breath, trying to get a little bit of revenge. "Unfair. Very unfair." But with that, my composure back, I grab her hand, my fingers knit through hers, and it feels like coming home, calming me, centering me, that one simple act a heavy coat on a wickedly cold winter night. My eyelids slowly close and her warmth goes from just that connection from hand to hand to feel like something more, something gloriously more, something perfect is starting.

"Ohime-sama...? Tour?"

Her voice snaps me back from that cocoon to the coldness of the moment. I'd freeze if she had let go but, thank the Thirty-nine million Gods, she didn't. I smirk and say, "San... ni... ichi... se... no...!" and like a schoolgirl, I'm off, with Luka tugged behind me like a kite. It's like a repeat of how I ran with her through my... no, Miku... through our home just yesterday. "Boring office, boring mens' room, vital ladies' room, boring legal department, bori... no... here's where we absolutely have to stop first!"

She peers at the placard on the door. "Wardrobe...? Before a show? Before even one recording? Miku, I don't get it. I mean, I love clothes, I absolutely do, and you saw the boxes of clothes I have, and how I have more boxes, and even one more, but why are we stopping here first? Isn't what I have on good enough for today?"

"Damme. No, not good, not good enough, not good enough at all!" With that, I open the door, and I give her a little playful shove. The room, which probably takes up the rest of the ground floor, is a nonstop drum solo of sewing machines, a supernova of every shade of thread and fabric, and a beehive of activity, a full-on frenzy of 'Yes' and 'No' and evaluations as outfits are made and unmade and remade. And there, on the rack, is what I'd died to see. All I do is hand her the hangar and push, push, shove, shove until Luka is at the entrance to one of a dozen changing booths. "Good, now, try it on. Come on, Luka, try it on!"

I am standing at the entrance, arms folded, foot tapping, as a song begins to take over my mind, just the beginnings of a melody composing itself on the spot. But then I am humming it, only to find myself whistling it seconds later. And then... 'Futariboshi'... the only word I actually sing. Two stars... I let myself get lost in finding lyrics to it, beyond that one word, before I feel a hand reaching through the curtains and it's my turn to be yanked like a kite in a breeze. Less than a blink later and I see her, I see Luka in the clothes I'd handed her.

The outfit is a slightly shiny black, with a zipper-front vest that shows a little bit of her taut tummy, and the skirt of a 'China dress', with bright gold-bronze trim at every hem. The top of the vest has a large gold pin that looks like the valves and finger buttons of a trumpet. Luka's trim, lean upper arms are in sheer short sleeves that end in a band of the same opaque black of the rest of the top, with an inch-wide rectangular patch that matches the Caribbean blue of her eyes, with a narrow gold border. A pair of identical belts keep the skirt from an... embarrassing... wardrobe malfunction, with alternating black and gold triangles. She's wearing mid-calf boots, gold with black laces and, proof I am somehow a masochist, I'd designed the piece to have slightly sheer black stockings with a 'circuitry' pattern, with gold strips at the top... bands that are a mere two inches from her waist. She is adorable, classy, elegant, and sexy, exactly as I wanted her to look. Exactly as I'd accidentally... or at least I think accidentally... designed it to do what it is doing right now: tease me to near terminal levels of frustration.

Luka is standing there, her arms folded as she gives me the most nervous attempt at a shy smile the world has never known, and definitely will never know again. She shifts into that 'nervous girl pose' that she's copied from me, moving her hands to knit behind her, her head bowing down with her eyes up to still be able to see me, as one foot is planted flat, the other pivoting back and forth at the toe of her boot. If it wasn't Luka, if it wasn't that Luka, if it wasn't 'my'... hold a sec... if it wasn't... uhmm... let me return to that little... uhh... let me have that line of thought later... But, if it wasn't Luka, I'd be really unsure how to ask this question.

"Well...?" I expected her to protest, or to be upset, or to yell, or to rip it off... not in that way, although I wouldn't exactly mind, but... ok, back up, Zero-One. I expected a million reactions. I was ready for all of them, even many at once, competing for one to win out over all of the others. I was ready for anything and everything, I thought. I was ready for whatever reaction Luka might have. Except for one. I was ready for every possible reaction, except for her to tackle me, hugging me tight and close, practically cuddle-crushing me while laughing like a madwoman, giggling and chuckling and chortling in an absolute explosion of happiness, even squeaking once, as she celebrates.

I really wasn't expecting her to tackle me, laughing like a happy little kid. But it definitely beats all of the negative reactions I had racing through my mind. Anger. Rejection. Hurt. Those I had readied myself for, prepared for, even rehearsed for. But having a giddy Luka jump on me, laughing like crazy, hugging me tight? No, didn't see this coming. I did not see this coming at all. "So... do you like it?" I ask, sounding so much like an idiot that I swear the sewing machines stop mid-stitch and that the pinking shears stop pinking, whatever that is.

"Like? No. Love? Yes. Absolutely yes, completely yes. It's not even great, or wonderful." She lets go of me and turns her head to the right, looking over her right shoulder as she spins around, watching how the outfit flows around her, inspecting every inch. "It's not even simply 'divine'. Miku, this... this is perfect!" She jumps up on a platform that is surrounded by mirrors and the tailor seems to appear from nowhere, soapstone in hand, before disappearing back into the crowd, not a mark made. "Do you know," she laughs to me, "how long I've wanted an outfit like this? I'm on cloud thirty-nine thousand right now!"

"Then you're gonna love this part!" I say as I find my hand in hers again, giving her a sharp but not painful... I hope... yank, running down the hall and to a very spacious but tastefully decorated elevator, with the same marble floor, but with glass windows. She's moved to be in the far corner, gripping the handhold like she might be sucked into a black hole. 'Luka is terrified of heights' I tell myself for some later reference. We arrive on the third level and Luka all but kisses the floor.

We're right outside the door to the 'Audio Augmentation Department' and Luka looks at me, then to the door, and then to me, looking at my arms, then her own. "Yep, it's where you're gonna get the sleeve thingy!" I never remember the proper name for it, even though I've worn one for two years. "The thingy I've worn for every recording and concert" I say, showing her my sleeves, a deep and rich gray, full of sliders and buttons, all level with the black LCD screen on it, with all of the buttons and sliders and levels and equalizers on the black background of the LCD, and all of the buttons and sliders and level and equalizers matching my 'aquamagreen' hair.

She's nervous as she walks in, and I can hardly blame her. "I was terrified when I went in, Luka-chan." I figure she must be, too, what with her staring at her upper arm and then to mine. But it also looks like she is memorizing the position of all of the sliders and buttons and even though the screen is off, even though the entire unit is off, it looks like she is even memorizing how the entire thing might work. But...

Luka opens the door, full of the same giddy energy as she had when she first reacted to her outfit. "I'm ready for my 'Audio Augmentation... thingy... Mister DeMille!" she playfully laugh-shouts, only for Suzie-san to chide her, rather sternly.

"That isn't how the line went!" the tech, replete with lab-coat and Coke bottle lenses, corrects. "It's 'All right, Mister DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up!' Now, who are you? Zero-One, where did you find this girl...?"

"Ask Itoh-san?" I wind up saying with Luka, in an accidental unison that matches pace, matches pitch, even matches a perfect melody. I find myself joining Luka in a brief little laugh. "Is it ready, Suzie-san? Is it fully, completely, totally ready?" The only answer we get is for the sleeve, a golden bracer on her right arm that is held in place by only a single, hidden, adjustable band at her elbow to come to life. Its blue LCD screen matches her eyes, matching her pools of Caribbean ocean blue, her divine and sacred and perfect eyes. The sliders and knobs are touch-based, projections of what would be their three-dimensional equivalent.

Looking at it, and then to Suzie-san, and then to me, and back and forth, she is trying her best to restrain her glee, even as she is given a manual that is thicker than most phone books. I feel her gaze meet my own pair of what I've dubbed 'armcoders'. She's very very clearly trying to figure out why I have two, one per arm, to her single bracer. "You're the newer model, Zero-Three."

"Zero... three?"

I slowly bring my hand to point to the marking on my arm. "See? Zero-one."

The wheels are churning in her head, slowly grinding, loudly turning to slag.

A raucous pair emerges from around the corner. If this was a classic cartoon, all that I would see would be only fists and shoes kicking and punching inside of a dark gray cloud. Cries of "Did not!" and shouts of "Did too!" clash with "You cheated!" and "Fair and square!" The explosion of a pair of kids is not lost on Luka, who only giggles as she takes a step back as the rivalry cloud moves to be right in front of her.

"Ara, ara!" she shouts. "That's enough!" She seems like she'd be the perfect mom, since the fighting stops immediately, and the 'cloud' fades to reveal a young boy and a young girl, almost identical, with not much more than how the two are dressed, and their hairstyle, to show who is whom.

The boy, too short to really be called a 'man', is five feet tall, not including the 'bananas' of hair atop his head, and he is just the right weight to match his being fourteen years old. Just like his sister, his skin is a bit darker than mine, and a little lighter than Luka's, and his light blue eyes are bright. His sister, completely obviously his twin sister, is an inch taller, and I've ended enough of their fights by taking out a tape measure to know. She has the starting of bumps on her chest, like a halved tangerine, and she asks to be measured every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday, to the point that the wardrobe department is ready before she walks in. And, unlike her brother, she has a neater bob of hair, curled under and jaw length, held neatly by a pair of black hair clips on either side, and topped with a really really cute white bow.

"Ok, you, banana-haired boy. Ball your fists and take five deep breaths. Good. Now... without accusations, and calmly, tell me what happened. Slowly."

He turns to me, a pleading look in his eyes. "And she is...?"

I just stare right back at him. "She is Megurine Luka. She's older. Treat her with respect. Now, she asked you to tell her what happened." I give her shoulder a light touch. "Or would you rather deal with me?" My eyes do that energized, increasingly bright shift I am told they do.

「"Hai, hai. Hajimemashite, Megurine-san. Ore no namae wa Kagamine Len. Ano hito wa, ore no futago no imouto..."」

"'Imouto'? I am not your younger sister!"

「"Hai, hai! Ano hito wa ore no futago no onee-chan ga Kagamine Rin desu. Kochirakoso. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Anata wa?"」

I smile at seeing Len-kun reduced to such a level of politeness with so little prompting, and I cannot help but smile wider as I see how good of a 'den mother' Luka really makes. The image of Luka cradling and feeding an infant, singing a soft and sweet lullaby to the swaddled newborn. For some reason it is incredibly easy to see myself as the baby's 'other mommy' and the imagery gives me a very slight warmth, like a warm winter coat.

「"Anata wa, Kagamine Rin-san desu ka? Kagamine Len-san no futago no onee-san desu ka?"」

"Hai. I am that idiot's older sister."

"So... what, really, really happened?" She definitely really is a mother to be in the making. When? I don't know. Of whom? No clue. With whom? Please be me...? Wait... when has to be after a while, once... once whatever happens to get us there... whenever whatever happens, happens. Please, Benzaiten-sama? Please?

"We were playing 'Vocaloid Dance-off All Stars', on 'Easy'..."

"I can kick your ass on any difficulty, bananas and a bow!" chides Len. "You demanded 'Easy' to give yourself a chance, you suck that--"

"Language!" interrupts Luka, in full-out and on full-on adult mode. "You may be a teenager, but that does not mean that you are not too old for me to swat your rear! Now, with a little maturity, back up, and tell me what happened. Calmly, and without swearing."

Something somehow clicks in Len-kun and he takes a deep breath. Then another. A third. Finally, he is calm. "Hai, hai. Wakatteru. Ok. I dropped the difficulty rating to make things fair because imouto-chan isn't as good as I am at dancing games."

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

"I am too!"

"Children!" Luka yells. "Children, and you will have to earn me calling you adults, you'll each have your turn. Len-kun, please, do continue."

Len takes a deep breath, and another, and a third for good measure. "We had it on..." he sighs. "...we had it on 'Easy' and I ended with a perfect score. But that led to three rematches. We wound up with a tie... two 'perfect' scores each. But that wasn't good enough, not for neither..."

"Not for either... now, go on."

"Whatever. We wound up too tired for the final tie-breaking match, and one thing led to another and... and you saw the rest."

"You left out the part that you cheated!" Rin says, almost yelling, her projected voice echoing through the marble and granite hallways, both in front and behind us. "Futago no otouto entered some code or something to make him get a 'perfect' each and that's how he won!" Something doesn't feel right, and while I'm trying to figure out what, Luka, with her mousetrap-quick and katana-sharp mind has it.

"How did you two decide who goes first?"

The twins look at each other. Len crosses his arms. He gets it; he understands why he has won. It takes only a fraction of a second for Rin to realize why she's lost. "She did, by a coin toss" Len says, the first two syllables overlapping perfectly, with Rin's "I did, we flipped a coin."

"And did you name the players? Or did you keep it as 'Player One' and 'Player Two'?" The silence lets Luka finish her Sherlock Holmesian mind game. "So how did Len-kun cheat if the game couldn't tell which person to help win...?"

The pair walk off, still arguing, but rather than fighting about who won, and fair and square, they shift to which of the two is the better gamer overall. I'm pretty sure Luka overhears what I do -- that they want a rematch in a game of Rin-chan's choosing. All I can do is look to Luka with a large degree of a wide-smiled, happy pride.

"Why are you and Len-kun and Rin-chan wearing headsets? I didn't see you put them on..."

"Oh! I forgot to have you fitted and registered! We have to go see Raul... this isn't good. This isn't good at all!"

***

I get to enjoy the feeling of her small hand, and the soft but firm grip of her slender fingers, for a moment before I also feel her yet again try and yank me like a kite in a strong breeze. Strangely enough, my shoulder has already adapted to the initial tug, so there is no shock of pain as she pulls me into one of the elevators. She doesn't let go, feeling my absolutely paralyzing fear of all things heights, so as we ascend from the second floor to the third, I get a quick moment of feeling that connection, that perfect link before the 'ding' as the lift announces that we are at our destination, whatever that may be.

Our footfalls are strangely quiet upon the marble floors as we pass a door labeled simply 'Zero-One' and another, 'Zero-Two'. But when we reach 'Zero-Three', she lets go of my hand. I feel a slight chill on my palm from the sudden absence of her warmth, from the sudden emptiness caused by her small, slender-fingered hand letting go, all replaced by a sudden unease as her hand, her perfect hand moves to the doorknob, opening the entryway slowly and, with a slight flourish, with a slight stage bow, she gestures inside, giggling a very soft, very sweet little C-D-E-G-C arpeggio and a mirth-filled "Dozo."

"D-d-domo," is all I manage to reply, somehow managing a "Ojamashimasu" just as I find myself entering a room that I would recognize even if I was blind: completely uniform flooring. Noise baffling walls. A ceiling of acoustic tiling. Even blind, I would feel that the lights come from the four corners, all projected to the center. Behind me, a full set of musical instruments, all made by Yamaha -- drums, two guitars, a bass, a synthesizer -- as well as music stands, and miles and miles of cabling, all leading to jacks on the walls. Descending from the ceiling is a large, telescoping black metal boom with a condenser microphone and a pop filter attached to it. A small XLR cable runs from the microphone, jammed in with just the right bit of delicate force, and up through the boom and into the ceiling.

"This is... a recording studio...?" I ask, feeling like a blithering, complete and utter idiot. "But," I ask, trying to salvage a little bit of myself. "But, why isn't there a monitor for me? I mean, I can match pitch immediately, and I have perfect pitch, too, but if I'm going to dub a track, I'll at least need to hear the instrumentals... There's a mic for me, but no monitor? How am I supposed to hear the booth...?"

Miku lets out a very soft little laugh. She is clearly holding something behind her back. "Kocchi, kocchi!" she says, motioning me to her. I try and capture her, try to tickle her, try and do anything, but she's too damned nimble, as if she has predicted my every movement and memorized where to be to dodge me. Face first, I fall and land on my chest, exhaling a little puff of breath, only to find Miku straddling my back, tickling my ribs, faster, faster, as I laugh, trying to crawl away. It's cute... ok, it's downright adorable... in how she has escaped me completely, how throughout we are both thoroughly laughing like a pair of little kids, two adults playing a game of 'tag'. I manage to crawl free, but it's as I miss entirely and bounce off of the acoustic padding of a wall and land on my rear, for the umpteenth time in under twenty-four hours, that she moves behind me. One hand cups over my eyes, the other just says a sweet "Shush" as I feel something placed atop my head, like a giant hairpiece. But I also feel it cup my ears, and a small, quarter of a circle bar descends from it to be in front of my lips. "Look" she says, pointing to the mirror that separates the control room from the studio proper.

"It's... they're..." I'm at a full, legitimate, complete loss for words. They're a set of gold, over-ear recording headphones, with a microphone that swings down to be that ideal distance from my lips, a proper headset with an integrated mic. The entire thing, except only for the head of the microphone itself and except for two vertical blue stripes, one on each earpiece, is gold, the same bronze-gold as the hem of my outfit. "They're beautiful!" I finally say. Miku had yet again adopted the 'nervous girl' pose, with her fingers knit behind her back, her head down but her eyes up, one foot planted, the other pivoting at the toe of her boot. But at hearing my opinion, she transitions instantly into that perfect explosion of energy, tackling me in girlish laughter, tickling me with far more than just a little success, our laughter melding into a sweet minuet for two as we sing to each other and for each other and from each other our giggles and glee. I manage, somehow, to push her off, regretting the fact that I had to, that I couldn't keep her on me and with me. Later, I tell myself, a soon version of later. Very soon, if all of this universe has a sense of respect for my heart.

"Let me guess... you picked the design...?"

As she pulls me to my feet, an act that she is surprisingly... well, not all that surprisingly, since she has had several opportunities to practice... that she is not unsurprisingly good at, Miku says a coy "Maaaaybe?" but can't sell it, laughing her way through. "You caught me. And the clothes, too. But not the room? Ok, fine. The room too. Since I'm Zero-One, and the twins..."

"Why isn't one Zero-Two, and the other Zero-Three?" I ask, although I have a hunch what the answer will be.

"Len-kun? And Rin-chan? Those two? You're kidding! Right? You've got to be absolutely kidding, Luka! Can't you just imagine it? It would be a war for a thousand years to get them to agree which is which! Those two are such a pair that when it came time to sign their contracts they had a race, and were fighting for days and days whose ink dried first! Could you... oh, right... the individual studios are permanently assigned, except for 'Zero-Zero' for duets, and they are weather-tight -- pressure and humidity -- so you only really have to do your levels once... so... can you imagine it? Can you really imagine one being permanently 'Zero-Two' and the other being permanently 'Zero-Three' and then the war over which would be better? 'A higher number is better' and 'Len-kun no baka! A lower number is!' And even if that truce was signed, which brat got which room?"

"Hai, hai! Wakatteru! Am I really ‘Zero-Three’?” I run my fingers around the headset, feeling it somehow 'become' a part of me, feeling me and my headset, in a way, negotiate with each other, feeling my headset and my body merge to be one and the same, one complete being, I run a finger from the tip of the microphone and along the boom. Up, up, and more on up to encircle the left cup, along the entire outside of my ear, maneuvering my fingertip to feel the foam, then out just enough to feel that it hasn't been metal painted bronze-gold, that, instead it has been made from bronze mixed with gold. Gently, I feel the pair of buttons on the side, instantly recognizing them to be 'On' and 'Off'. The Caribbean resort blue of her eyes, eyes that match my own, makes the vertical strip have a sense of familiar warmth, despite the fact that it is just a frosted sheet of glass in front of an array of LEDs. I am wrapped in a blanket of comfort, as if Miku has me cuddled while her sweet voice sings a private, extemporaneous lullaby for me and me alone, a soft little andante, sang for me but lost to time only a moment after its perfect notes drift from her to me, and from me to my memory, never to be repeated.

But with that, I feel -- I cannot hear it -- I feel the door to the sound studio close, and I see the recording light come up. Raul's voice comes through, and he sounds exactly like an Englishman in his forties. Somehow I imagine him ordering a tea, specifically an 'Earl Grey' served to him 'hot' as he tugs at the base of a red shirt that has a pin above his left breast. With this image in my head, I smirk, remembering why I am in this soundproofed chamber.

「Hajimemashite. Atashi no namae wa 'Megurine Luka' desu. Kyou kara, atashi wa Crypton Media de hataraite imasu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.」

There is a brief pause, just long enough, I think, for Le Blanc-san to replay the recording and ponder its quality and tonality and clarity. Just long enough for me to shift my weight from one foot to the other and back. Thrice. Then, that English accent again. "That was good, but let us try again, this time a little faster, a little more energy."

「Hai, hai. Ok. Here goes. Hajimemashite! Atashi no namae wa 'Megurine Luka' desu! Kyou kara, atashi wa Crypton Media de hataraite imasu! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!"」

Another pause, a little longer, but just as quiet, just as nerve-inducing. "Ok," says Le Blanc-san. "Not as loud, but I like the energy. Let's try again?"

He's the professional, I remind myself. Trying to meet his idea, 「Hajimemashite. atashi no namae wa 'megurine luka' desu! kyou kara, atashi wa crypton media de hataraite imasu. yoroshiku onegaishimasu.」 Is that good?"

"Hmm..." he says, with a pause that again has me shifting my weight. "That was good, but let us try again, this time a little faster, a little more energy."

That sounds very familiar, but then again, this could just be nerves making me a little clouded. 「Hajimemashite. Atashi no namae wa 'Megurine Desu'. Kyou kara, atatshi wa Crypton Media de hataraite imasu."」 I'm hoping that, by now, I have nailed it. 'Note to self,' I find myself thinking, 'from now on, put some good insoles in these boots.'

Another delay.

"Not as loud, but I like the energy. Let's try again?"

Wait a second. Wait, wait. Hold on. This time I know for sure I'm not imagining things. Let's test this... 「Hajimemashite. Atashi no namae wa 'Raul Le Blanc'. Kyou kara, atashi wa Crypton Media de hataraite imasu."

"That was good, but let us try again, this time a little faster, a little more energy."

Ok, now I am pissed.

"Ei, bee, queue, seven, green, five, em, Megurine Luka Miku Rin..."

"Not as loud, but I like the energy. Let's try again?"

"Oh fuck this..." I remove my headset and turn it on as high as possible, maximizing the gain, and I place the boom mic on my new headset about an eigth of an inch -- if that -- from the dynamic microphone for a good two seconds. Yes, the feedback is, for me, an absolute bitch. But the door opens, with Miku covering her ears, and actually swearing up a storm, even as she is laughing, trying to cup her ears and tackle me in a hug, both at once.

Behind her, cupping his own ears, is a certain banana-haired young man, and his ribbon-clad yonuger...? older...? twin sister. With them, Suzie-san, Raul-san, and... "Itoh-san? Did you sanction this? Why did this happen? Why was I pranked... no, why was I hazed on my first day here? Wait... let go of my arm! What the hell are you doing to my arm? Let go of..."

Yet again, like it is my lot in life, I am rather violently deposited on a hard surface, and yet again, as if it is most certainly Fate playing a cruel sliver of revenge, I land upon my rear. My left arm, right at the bicep, feels suddenly much heavier, and in half the time it would take for a scherzo's conductor to even raise her baton, my left arm feels right as rain. I turn to face them, one at a time, Itoh-san, Raul-san, Suzie-san, Rin-chan, Len-kun, and then a wide-grinning Miku, her smile showing she is trying her absolute best not to once again tackle me and tickle me until just shy of the point of embarrassing no return. Her index and middle finger point to her eyes and then to my left arm. Then, as if following some instinct, or perhaps as a reward for not tickling me, she gives my nose a quick tap, saying only "Boop!"

From some instinct deep inside me, paired with some force from out in the ether, I mimic, looking from Miku's pools of perfect infinity and then to her upper arm, where I see a familiar 'Zero-One' stenciled in red, underlined, with a full-justified 'Hatsune Miku' in a much smaller font just below. I feel my nose playfully and lovingly, both at once, very gently tapped, as Miku again, a ball of energetically silly silence, gestures to her eyes and then to her bicep. Somehow I understand and, with my eyes looking to hers, looking into hers, wanting nothing more than to relieve myself of my burden and confess my crimes against friendship, I move my gaze to my own upper arm.

There, clear as can be, stenciled in, are two numbers, a 'zero' and a 'three', underlined, with 'Megurine Luka' beneath. I instinctively wet my index finger with my tongue and try and rub it off, only to realize that whatever it is, it is permanent or very close to it. My now-dry finger traces it for some sign of blood or some depression or any other telltale source of how it had been drawn upon my skin. But I am as clueless as ever, my hand rubbing upon the new markings, rubbing over the new tattoo, as all I ask, aloud, if "How? When?"

British-voiced Raul only says, "When you registered your headset. It was on a time-delay designed to match the practical joke that was pulled upon you to the best degree possible. I believe Miss Hatsune shall be the one to say the rest. Please do, Miss Hatsune, at your leisure."

"San, ni, ichi..." And with that, all of them in some strangely perfect form of unison, "Omedetou, Megurine Luka! Kampai!" Her explosiveness adds, "Welcome to Crypton, Luka-chan!" I make a mental note to seek revenge somehow, in some way, on a date and at a time of my choosing. You will face my gentle and soft, sweet, tender 'wrath' one of these days, Leeku!

I'm more than thoroughly confused as Miku connects a one-eighth inch male-to-male audio cable to the base of a plate on the studio wall to her headset, and another from her headset to my own. Her small hand, with its slender fingers, so warm and soft, grips my own and, looking into the twin pools of Caribbean blue of her eyes, I find myself yet again weak, yet again willing to dive and drown. Without the others able to see, I mouth to her, "Ohime-sama...?" But the only answer I get is a slight burning sensation on my upper left arm and the feeling of her hand. Even as I turn to see what is making my arm hurt... slightly... only very slightly... I feel her perfect hand does not let go, not even for a moment. That very slight warmth, and her very slight warmth, mix together, blend together, and the feeling is almost bordering on pleasant. Not in the masochistic sense. It just feels... right, in some way. I let out a soft sigh of contentment, like the rightness leads me, and even leads Miku, into an adaggio.

Even as I sort of am able to process that it is a pair of large underlined numbers, and two words beneath the numbers' underbar, she does not let go. Even as I see she has something almost identical on her upper left arm, that the twins do, too, she squeezes my hand and holds it tight.

***

I've been good. I mean, good as far as I am concerned. I mean I've been good in terms of ‘Miku-good’ so I do deserve a little treat, a little bit of the ‘chocolate’ that I keep private and hidden. Besides, I finally get to hear her ‘singing’ even if her ‘melody’ and her ‘lyrics’ aren't meant to be overheard, least of all by me.

God, it really is rote, my left hand at the hem of my nightgown, sliding it up, slowly stroking my inner thigh, my voice catching in my throat, a little hitch as a very soft little sound escapes me. One strap slips just a little as I wet a finger, trailing from one ear to the other along my jaw. Another note, longer, more throaty, as I feel that familiar first little bits of tingling static.

My breasts are needy tonight but I want to enjoy this, not to rush, not to force myself from need to... well... no more need. I'm hearing her song, slightly, just tickling the edge of my hearing, just at the edge of my consciousness. Her sweet melody becomes my own, point and counterpoint, theme and variations, a duet in many keys, but throughout an adagio, softly played, each our own instrument, and yet each also acting as the other's.

My right hand dips a little farther ‘south’ as a single finger, slickened only by the hot wetness from my tongue, traces along a trek of madness. It loops over the top of my left breast at a pace that is just shy of shredding my sanity and breaking my desire to rein in my need, threatening my need to end this self-indulgence too soon. It dips down the valley between my meager and yet still also ample beasts, and under the right. My back arcs and my feet and toes scrunch as my other hand trails from inner thigh to waist to the other inner thigh. My one wet, hot, soaking, boiling digit slowly snakes up the outside of that overstimulated mound, easing me back to a degree of quiet, my other hand goes from inner thigh to beneath my most sacred mons.

Looping one hand in that figure of eight around my breasts, the other a simple circuit of inner thigh, above my shaved bare cunny, along my waistline, down the other leg's inner thigh, and beneath my mons, I feel my need building, compounding, merging, oneness with hers, with Luka's, all as I hear her crying out for “Mik... to... please... Mik... to... please, please, please Mi...”

Even as I hear her cry for some other girl, as I feel myself die from not being the one in her wishes, from not being the one in her heart, not in her mind, nor soul, nor in Luka's hidden moments of lust-fueled need, I feel myself die aa I'm also born, set free from my cocoon to whisper to her that I love her, to give her my heart to use or not, to accept or not. Even as I hear what I can of her song, as I am biting on a towel as I am trying, crying, trying, doing all that I can to listen to her from the floor of the bathroom, to let her own cries and moans, her sweet, sweet, so wonderful and so perfect melodies merge with my towel-silenced song, hearing her bittersweet, cried aria of bliss, her lyrics a simple “Please? Please please...? May I touch...? May I love... you Mik... to? Pleasepleaseplease... nghh!” and the soft panting of self-pleasured, self-loved passion from her, the silence of my own towel-bitten, simultaneous bliss, mixed only with the need, the crushing, the flaming, the all-consuming need for answers, the jealousy and the regret, and a full-soul remorse for my one fantasy now slain by this ‘Mikoto’, whomever she may be. If she even exists...

***

“So, you overheard Roomie-chan?” Vivi chan asks, pointing at me with a fork full of Caesar salad. “You know, uhh... Megurine Luke-chan? No.. uhh... Megurine Ritsuko-chan... that's not it... uhh... I got this... uhmm... no, I don't got this. Megurine...”

“Luka. Megurine Luka. Cotton candy, waist-length, straight, flawless pink hair. Porcelain skin, not a mar, not a mark, nothing except pure, porcelain skin. Her eyes are exactly like mine, except brighter, like they should have warning signs so you don't drown. A little nose and such a brilliant white straight smile, almost always smiling or laughing these pure joy, pure real, genuine smiles.

“Breasts the size I wish I had. Not as big as yours, Vi-chan... have you considered reductions? I mean, doesn't your back hurt?”

“These?” she cups them with a pride that would be obscene if anyone else saw. She gives them a slight squeeze. “God made them and they're real, and they're all mine, and hnmm... Christ, they're fantastic!” If I didn't know she was acting, and poorly at that, I'd've had the two of us thrown out and banned.

“But,” she continues, “This Megurine Ritsuko-chan...”

“Luka... say it with me. Lu-ka-chan...”

“Hai, hai. This Megurine Lu-ka-chan, who has been all you can talk about for three weeks... this Megurine Lu-ka-chan... does she look anything like the girl behind you...?” I don't look behind me, not even for a quick sneakthief of a glance. Vivi will make some jokes, but others? She'd never kid like this, not even once. Never. She's being honest, completely and utterly and fully and totally honest. “Relax, relax. Your love of loves ducked into The Strand. I'll let you know if she comes out of the closet... of the bookstore I mean.

“So, you've been hearing her for, what, nine nights now? Poor little Leek-u. Why are the hard things easy and the easy things hard for you? C'mon. You know she's... in some form... what was your term you invented? You know she's ‘unstraight’ in some way, right? And you know you are totally ‘bent’...”

“Vivi! I'm not a 'Leek-u'. Welsh spring onion! But, yeah, she's ‘unstraight’ but I am not ‘bent’...! I'm not a British crazy person! But... gah! What do I do? She's stuck, not just in my head, and not just in my heart.”

Vivi uses her once per lunch moment of brutally honest insight, and adds for me, “And she's not just stuck in your nightly fantasies, your needs, libido, call it what you will. She's stuck-stuck. Miku, Miku, Miku. You really don't see it? You really cannot see it? Do you really need to be told that you need to use the right moment, to softly talk to Lu-ka-chan and tell her how you feel, to tell her your feelings, and let things unfold from... Miku, stop slumping, it's bad for your shoulders...”

“Sayeth 36DD...?”

“Just...” Vivi, red-haired, light-skinned, green-eyed, always smiling, and forever-wise Vivi says with a sigh, “just go out the back... it looks like Lu... ka... chan... is coming in through the front...”

All I do is put more than my share, more than Vivi's share, and more than a generous tip on the table, give my best friend a peck on the cheek, and vanish through the rear doors.

***

Tonight. It's getting close, and so am I. Just the knowledge that Luka is getting comfortable, that she is going to that place of calmed frenzy where she feels both need and delay. I can tell she's getting ready when I hear how her bed shifts so slightly, the frame creaking from her crawling to the center and turning to lay upon her back. It's like the drums at the beginning of a building song, something I can imagine her singing... and that I've heard her ‘singing’...

It's my cue.

Slowly, as silently as I can, I move to close the lid to the toilet, draping a folded towel on top of it. One hand holds a cup to the door as I fish for a pair of her panties. Or a sock. Or anything of hers that makes it so I can ‘feel’ her on me, with me. It's a slow, deliberate process, doing all of this in silence and stillness, wanting to be unnoticed, but wanting to be ‘caught’ too.

I hear Luka's sigh, a slow, deep, relaxed alto's long puff of exhaled air. I close my eyes, seeing without seeing her hands as they move, one up, one down.

Dammit. Is she hiding her laundry now? Wait. One, two, three, four, five... I do my laundry weekly, and I'm one pair short. One... pair...? If she does what I do... if she is taking a pair of mine, then... is...

Is it possible?

“Mik... to... me...”

I lean just a little closer, a little more pressure on the door, leaning tighter. My breathing stops, but my heart is thundering in my head, my eyes glaze over. My body stiffens, my jaw clenches, and my hand, holding a pair of her delicate lace, moves from my cunny up and down, through the valley of my lips, my eyes closing as I imagine that my hand is hers, that the silk I am holding is her, slick and moist as she wears them, trailing her core against my thigh, grinding into me so very gently, and so very sweetly, her one finger testing me, teasing me, raising me up to hold my need steady, dipping into me, curling before pulling back, every move perfect and delicate, like the lace she wears as she moves herself against me, teasing and torturing herself as she makes my heart a drum machine, as she tries to make me voice my bliss, all by her one long, slender finger folding and straightening, sliding along my folds, the wetness of my cunny growing, her love for me building and building, adding and adding to the heat of my core.

“Miku...please, please Miku...let me touch you?”

Dear... thirty nine... million...

But with that the door, the only physical ‘fence’ separating me from her, keeping our fantasies from being our... singular... reality, that three foot by seven foot by three inch slab of wood, that single wood ‘fence’ opens, a blessed traitor, giving way just as I would have cut and run, just as I would have bolted to let her have that privacy, we're just both too unready, and just as I would have fled and run to my own bed to cry, to ask Vivi for more advice, that door... her door... opens and throws me into her room, explodes me into her room, landing on her floor bottomless, partially topless, clutching a pair of her panties in my left hand like a sacred, Holy relic, landing on my chest, my eyes looking up to her, tears and fears in my eyes, and fears and tears in hers. I don't even say a lame, nervous, forced giggle of “Hi.” I'm fully silent, on my rear, clearly almost fully nude, but as exposed as I can be, panting from fear, from excitement, from terror, from hope, and from two needs at once.

To flee, to be as absolutely far from this spot on her floor, as far from her room, as far from this house, this city, this planet as possible. I've hurt her, and banishment is all I can think of, not just to punish me, but also to try and somehow help to heal her, to set it all right from home I'd made it all wrong. I need to turn and run and give her the universe for her new ‘personal space’ -- I would have given her all that exists from love, and now that same, same love... I have to give her all that that existence was inside of, to give her the room she needs. The room she deserves.

And yet I know that at the exact same time I need to be right where I am, somehow, to remain where I am... if only I could be here and as far from here at the same time. If I could just stay in her heart, and stay out of her fears...

***

It's become a ritual by now, three minutes after midnight, when all is still, when all is quiet, when I can hear only my breathing and my heart, and when all that is in my mind is my need, paralysis setting in unless I act, desire and lost about to burn me to ashes so fine that the four winds carry me all across the globe, praying my fiery remains blend with hers, that in some way we become some form of one, that my own internal fire and hers make me and make she into ‘We.’ It's instinct for any girl with a sex drive, knowing, eventually, where to touch, how, when, and what results.

My need has gotten to be too great than to ‘quickie’ myself out of tonight's... session. Those twin aquamagreen waterfalls, and those eyes, so bright and youthful, so curious, so... so alive. That little nose that invites my hand to playfully tap. That laughing and giggling sweet mouth. I want to not only bury you in kisses, but to be buried with you, a mess of tickling, laughing, kissing, Miku. I want you to feel my every emotion all at once as this spaghetti of feelings, where we can't tell where you end and I begin.

I want you to feel pleasure, so much pleasure, nothing but pleasure, pure and simple joy, layer upon layer of joy, only and all and fully engulfed in joy.

“Miku, I love you. Please, Miku, please? Miku? May I touch you? Please, love, Miku, let me touch you, please, please, please Miku, may I touch...”

The door doesn't just open. It explodes, off its hinges, in splinters flying through the room, in the wall, in me, in my bed, impaling me, slicing into me, shredding me, reducing me into chunks, my body chunks of bloody flesh, reduced to this puddle with bone and tissue, a stew of sinew on grey matter, my bones hit by beams of wood, the doorknob smashes my face, my heart impaled upon a plank, as the speed of the door's destruction lights it and me ablaze, cooking my blood and skin, roasting my muscles and fat, baking my entire flesh and bone and self into a devil's cake, devoured by all of the demons I have kept at bay all these years.

It holds a set of panties, it holds them close, choking them, gripping them, like they said I had gripped them, stolen like they accused me of stealing them. Wet, soaked, dripping, flooded by cunt juices, slickened and drenched from my supposed use, a pair not mine but now ‘mine’ through my theft, pussy-property is theft, the fact that they had been ‘used’ by me making them toxic, fit only for destruction. Best to lock the drawer to your drawers, so that this certain pink-haired freak in my mirror doesn't come to visit; count what you have and don't let her join anything at your house. Write that tally down, in case you're forced to include her. She'll take them, or she'll take you.

That's what that freak does, after all...

Nightmare upon nightmare slices my eyelids, forcing them open so all I can see is this chthonian hellspawn, twin ponytails of fire, eyes of black holes, a demon queen so vile that even my memories and traumas worship her. Hell after hell, night terror after night terror, waking immobile as the screams are trapped, as the fear is still at an eleven. Out of five. I feel too nauseous to throw up, too dizzy to bother to try to regain any sense of my equilibrium.

That's how that freak acts, after all.

“Get out. Get out! GET OUT!” I scream, and somehow, shielding myself by pulling my blanket over me, by rolling myself into a fetal ball, by cupping my ears with my hands, and by saying “get out” in soft muffled cries is enough to make the room as it had been: a closed door, solid, not broken; no flames; no splinters; no blood; no bones or muscle or skin or fat tissues; no grey matter.

Just a normal bedroom.

And me, fetal beneath my blanket, crying and rocking back and forth, terrified and drowning in self-loathing: I hurt her. I hurt the one, only one, the only single one I cannot ever allow even one leaf in a breeze to harm her.

No, now there's me, only me, just me, fetal, rocking back and forth, ears cupped, crying like an infant.

And, somewhere, a hurt and terrified Hatsune Miku-sama...

***

I don't know what I did. Well, I do know that I know that I walked in on her as she... did that. But it's like I did more, like I did things I didn't know, but did nonetheless. I feel shredded. Not conflicted, not confused, not anything other than shredded. Somehow I make it through the suddenly miles-long trek through the bathroom, climbing up and under the covers. Somehow I manage to sleep. Even dream.

I've been here before. I've been flat on my back exactly like this before. I've had my hands flatly laid, one atop the other, I've had my head straight to look directly up before. I've been positioned and posed like this, as if the bed I am on was a casket before. I have been here, I have been her... I have been Sleeping Beauty... before, immobile, barely breathing, mute, but with the most perfect hearing in the realm.

But this time, this time is as different as different gets. I can hear an apple being eaten. I can hear each bite. I can hear the core being tossed around me, the sweet smell quickly becoming wretched but a second after it rolls to a stop. There's someone here, with me, I know, since even in Alice's world, apples don't eat themselves. Another apple's sounds, the dull bouncing and rolling sounds, that rotting stench.

Another apple.

Outside, the roar of that dragon, louder and louder, and the vomiting of flames. But there is another sound, worse than any I have ever known. Bones snapping and popping as screams, deafening and brain-shredding, with the howling of terror as those flames hit metal of some kind. The shrieking of a blistering roasting of flesh as the worn foundry melts onto and around the one wearing it.

And the mix of that dragon, its conquered prey, and the apple-eater, all one combined Symphony for Insanity in Miku-minor, Opus 39, number zero-one. It varies in volume, the source closer for a few seconds, farther for a few seconds, like the advance and retreat of the one fighting and losing, fighting and losing, over and over.

“She can hear you, you know. I will allow you two words. But choose carefully, for all that you get is those two words, no tricks, no second chances. Think hard, dear princess, two words. What do you say to my offer, young maiden princess, young Princess Miku? You may answer me and it will not count as part of your two words. Here, let me undo the small portion of that spell so you can speak to me.”

Not trusting the witch or sorceress or demon or devil or whatever she may be, I open my jaw as wide as it goes and with my one last thought, as I ready myself, my last thought as my body slams down to choke upon my tongue's blood, my only, single, final thought, ‘Megurine Luka, my love, my love, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Be freed by this...'

Blackness until...

The light of dawn just gently dances on my eyes, giving me what, any other morning, would be a welcome way to rejoin the waking world. Well, that'd be true except for my alarm clock. I'm not a deep sleeper. I'm ‘the’ deep sleeper. My hand slams down on my alarm clock. Poor thing needs another trip to Vi... To Vi... to...

I'm up and out of bed and dressed in a flurry of motion. A soft knock on Luka's... door... No response. Another quick, soft knock. Nothing. Placing the alarm clock in my messenger bag, I slowly, almost silently descend to the kitchen. We've lived together almost two weeks now. I haven't paid attention. Is she a rice girl? Toast?

Both is the safest bet, right?

I take a small degree of calm in manually rinsing the rice, in putting a pinch of salt into the boiling water, in putting the rice into the pot. I find a certain meditative peace in putting up two slices of bread to toast. There's even a small relaxing sliver in brewing a cup of coffee for her, a second for me. After my one, two, three... fine, six... after my six cubes of sugar, after adding enough cream that it almost becomes a white-colored brew, I raise her mug, and mine.

Her mug clinks against mine as I say, “Good morning, Luka-ch...” I put both mugs down and find myself crying a few drops into her mug and into mine. I hope, as I put the jam, toast, cream, sugar, and mug onto a tray, carrying it an inch at a time up the stairs, taking out a note that reads, only, “It was my fault, all if it, and I hope you can forgive me. Hopefully still ‘your’ ‘Ohime-sama’, Hatsune Miku.”

With that, I'm out the door, heading for the nearest Starbucks to The Strand.

***

Tuning a twelve-string guitar is, on the best of days, in the best of circumstances, a slow, deliberative process. I don't need a tuner. Well, not usually. Not on a normal day. Kinda hard to call the morning after the love of your... no, the celebrity crush you've claimed to be the ‘love of your’... no, after... after she caught me... using her panties... to...

Yeah... I can forgive my using a tuner today. Just this one day. A little flat. A little... still too... no, no, no! “Fuck! I can't use this stupid little obsessive introduction to guitars little piece of shit box!” I toss the thing back into my case, not hard enough to break the stupid little bitch, but hard enough for it to make a pleasant, dull thud. It's a nice hit of a bass drum that almost gets me looking for other things to use for percussion.

I got nothing.

One deep breath, my eyes closing, and I notice my head feels just a little too heavy. Placing my guitar in the case, I run a hand through my “cotton candy” hair. Cotton... candy... That's what she called it. Dammit, I have her stuck in my mind, like she's attached to me, like I'm wearing her. Not literally. I burned those in an alley first chance I got. No, like I've got her on my mind and looped arm in arm. My hand brushes my bangs and I feel it, the band across the top of my head, connecting earphone to earphone. It's been rote to put it on since I got it.

“Miku in my mind...” I chuckle.

But...

My right hand rubs my left upper arm, feeling for it, feeling that slightly sunken red zero-three, underlined, with my name, much smaller, beneath it. It was the last place that she had placed her hand. The last spot that small hand, with its soft and slender fingers had been on me. Outside of my fantasies, the two places, outside of my private... lust-dreams... outside of those midnight moments, she... Hatsune Miku... those were the last two places those small, slender-fingered hands had...

Had...

No, I won't cry. I won't let them get my tears. Not now, not ever. Even with me proving them right about the hamper, even with them right about me begging to be touched, about me begging just to be loved. Even with them right about everything, I won't cry. They got three years out of me. They got my social li... Ha! They got my attempts at a social life, my good name, they got how they saw me without a chance to prove them right, they got my one ‘friend’ to ‘betray’ me -- how does someone never on your side betray you? They got everything... except my tears.

But I'm letting her have them? I can't uncry tears, Hatsune-san. They're, each one, they are all, all of them, permanent gifts that cannot be returned. There's no receipt, and the box is opened. Each tear is something you get to keep Hatsune Miku-san. Each tear is a part of me that you can keep, Miku-san. Each tear is yours to do with as you wish, Miku-chan. Each tear is one of a kind; they're like snowflakes. Symmetrical and unique.

Like butterfly wings.

Dammit, I'm crying just enough for me to know, and not enough to notice. I'm here, just at the lip of the fountain, tuned, and crying just a little bit, using the dying of the water to help compose a setlist. A gentle spray of mist, like the drying tears at the top of my cheeks. The barking of a ‘No Dogs Allowed’ as a longboarding kid gives me just enough of an idea to toss in an ‘oldie but a goodie’ as far as my four years of ‘open mic nights’ career goes. Another dog, too cute, almost a full-grown puppy.

Tuned, with a clamp in place, my voice ‘born ready’ and...

“She... She stares a near a light years resolution to start that great American novelty of the first place it any where are you to night is when she misses out of sight seeing the one two three meals per daily bread and circuses are bankrupted morality is subjected to the cruelty through the kindness of seeing your face off on her mind over it doesn't antimatter engines ready set go away from come into my arms of wars fought by Hershey candied apple intelligence strength will save me from myself and I is all that it isn't much but too big little prayer she has for you.”

I love starting off with that one. It grabs people, it turns heads and stirs something inside while violently shaking something else, both soothing and unsettling, calming while hitting like a punch to the face. I don't sing if for others. It's not for the coins folks toss, although that's always welcome. I don't really even sing it for me. At least that's what I tell myself. I long ago convinced myself that I sing it because it is so alien to me, that it let's me set the stage for the rest of what I'll play.

Thirty nine million Gods would it be ironic if she'd heard it, if she'd somehow seen me at an open mic night, or that somehow she'd been in the audience as some funny... ironic, really... role reversal?

Ok, what was next on the setlist?

***

Red hair, in twin drill-like ponytails, this absolute shock of red, against nearly paper-white skin. Each ear home to more metal than a pistol: bars with very fine, hand-wrapped chainmail around them. Three studs, forming a Pride flag between one ear and the other. Hoops with little girls of gold swinging from them.

Eyes of absolutely electrified green, with a hoop at the eyebrow above the right with a baby-pink bead. A Sherlock Holmes-style deer stalker cap. An 82nd Airborne patch on a “peace symbol” t-shirt. Black jeans with a blindingly bright pink chain. Wool socks and Teva sandals. Green earbuds as she listens to a cassette player. Yellow.

And braless breasts that enter the room a week before she does. Sipping and bouncing to the song on the cassette. It's all a parody: the piercings are magnetic. The patch is a mass-market surplus version of her grandfather’s real one, stitched with pride on his uniform. The t-shirt is a hand-made tie-dye. She shredded the jeans by accidentally getting caught on the turnstile of an uptown A during rush hour. The socks and sandals are legit, she has said, claiming to always be cold. The cassette player is broken, and the tape is blank.

“Holmes never wore the cap, Vivi...”

“Good morning to you, too, Leek-u. You said urgent and you look like shit. What happened? Did you and...Ritsu-...”

“Not now. Yes, we... well, I... I fucked up, Vivi. Bad.” I basically collapse into the chair, letting my body adjust to it. I plant one arm across the tabletop, then the other, burying my head in my arms. I try not to cry, not in a Starbucks. I'm not that kind of pathetic. Broken, yes. Guilty? Verdict is in, gavel has sounded, defense counsel is giving me an itemized bill. “I took a pair. I saw she had a pair of mine, and I heard her. I was... helping myself...”

“You were masturbating while holding a pair of her panties...”

“Yes... kinda...”

“Leeku-u, you're either masturbating or you're not. It's like being pregnant. Or shooting clay targets. Or eating a cheeseburger. You are or you ain't. So, you were ‘kinda’ going through the motions. And?”

I ignore her pun. “I was... helping myself... and I heard... ok, one hand was... busy... and the other had a cup to her door to the shared... Vivi, she wasn't asking for some ‘Mikoto’... she was... Luka-ch... no, Megurine Luka-san way calling out... for me...” I feel elated and evil, both at once, like I'm in heaven and hell simultaneously. “The door...”

Vivi stops stirring her iced coffee. “Did you knock first?”

I lift my head, shake it side to side, and lower it again, crying silently enough that even the guy who is right on top of me, trying to prove that two objects can take up the same space at the same time, can't tell. “I wish I'd knocked. Or that I'd... that I'd not listened. The door... it opened on own... I spilled into her room. She... there’s hurt, and then there's hurt, right?”

“Go on.” Vivi is using a tone of voice I've never heard before. The playful, nothing is sacred, sarcastic, cynical Vivi-voice is gone. The whole ‘shrink’ voice is gone. Even her occasional monotone is gone. This is Mommy-Mode. “You spilled in, holding a pair of her panties, she holding a pair of yours, the two of you both interrupted as you are each ‘helping yourself’ and...? It'll help to say it.”

“And she...”

“Vivi... she broke down. She screamed at me and from there it sounded... it was terrifying to hear her fear, and for her to live it? I broke through something and for as much as she now knows it's mutual... if I could, I'd go back, be celibate, anything to stop those fears from... it was bad, Vivi. It was truly... it's not lost, it never was, but to heal her... I'd...”

“You'd do nothing. You'd help her heal, yes, but not heal her for her. Right?”

I lift my head, tears slowly trickling down my cheeks, but fewer in number, descending slower. They don't stop but they diminish enough for me to not be at risk for walking into a... speeding... "You're right, Vivi. It's like you have this... magical, miracle vision into whatever tour is going on in my head, like you know the setlist before it's been written."

“Nah. I don't have magical powers. And I don't do miracles. But I do have my own ‘irregulars’.”

“Irregularities, you mean” I giggle, my first show of anything other than internal rage, mourning, self-loathing, and a need to set things right... but for her sake. For Megurine Luka-san's sake. I caught myself before I called her anything closer than that. I have to re-earn that privilege. If it's even possible. If I'm even capable of fulfilling the tasks -- plural -- that I'd need to. I hurt her. Sure, she's a stranger to me, just as much as I'm a stranger to her. But that's not what matters here. She's s coworker, I'm her mentor. Even if there is more, and even if her own... self-help... shows that there is... was... mutually desired for there to be more... all of that aside, she's a fellow Vocaloid, designed as I am, to bring joy through our music. And we cannot do that when... yes, I'm using that word... for both of us... "We cannot bring joy, we cannot even properly sing... if we're broken."

“Moshi moshi? Miku-chan? Hello? Earth to Miku? Mi-chan?”

She pinches my cheek. Not hard-hard, no, but just enough to break me from my train if thoughts of brokenness. “Oi! Don't do that! Every time I'm hurting, you do that! C'mon, not fair! Where are your irregulars to stop you?” I actually laugh. “Although it explains the anachronistic hat... incorrectly anachronistic but still anachronistic...”

She sticks out her fake-pierced tongue. “Movies and BBC and PBS are good enough for me, Miss Sandplay Fake-Goth...”

I shudder. That one song... “I hate that piece, Vivi, and you know that! Great, I'm gonna have worse dreams tonight. And I mean worse than already worse than I know they will be!”

“Only if you let them, Mi-chan. When was the last time you listened to some music?”

“Yesterday? The Twins were recording a...”

“No, no, no. I mean when was the last time you heard self-composed, live, no studio, nothing but heart and soul music? If you have to think, it's been too, too long. Hatsune Miku, go home, but follow your ears, hon. Keep your eyes open, of course -- no sense getting mugged -- but listen. No. Hear. Hear what you can as you walk. If it means walking beyond 3 East 9th -- leave it to you to have Mi-tsu Kyuu... Mi-kyuu... if it means you go a little beyond...”

I find that I am nodding even after she has finished speaking, hypnotized by how much sense it makes. She us right. Vivi is, as always, as literally, without exception, perfectly right. “Wakatteru. Arigatou, Vi-chan.”

Again, I offer to pay, and again she refuses. “You'll need it for your ‘Prin-cess Charming’, Mi-chan.” A moment or three later, I'm standing, and the guy next to me practically falls to where I had been, my sudden absence acting like a form of black hole.

***

I hate doing covers, I truly do. It's lazy, it's dishonest, people thinking something is mine when it isn't. I don't mean the glaringly obvious covers of Queen or something. I mean a cover of a song by someone just a few notches of fame higher than I am.

Who am I kidding? A few notches below Glen Hansard's tree is, with me stuck on the forest floor, a few dozen kilometers... right, miles... a few notches below Hansard is still dozens of miles above me. A few notches. Right. Tuning is done. Clamp is in place.

“Scratching at the surface now  
And I'm trying hard to work it out  
And so much has gone misunderstood  
And this mystery only leads to doubt...”

I play a few repeats between the first verse and the second, bleeding the melody a bit, bleeding the song a bit, as I let it all bleed me a bit, getting ready to pack up and head to some Single Room Occupancy for the night. I'm just... not ready... not yet... just plain unready. I can face her. I can't face my room. I can't go through that bedroom to the bathroom, and it'd be, well, rude and awkward and just plain wrong to risk waking her just to go downstairs to use the bathroom.

“And I didn't understand  
When you reached down to take my hand  
And if you have something to say  
You better say it now...”

This song is too damned perfect. It's my every single emotion right now, even the rests. Chords, single notes, fret noise, rests. Words, syllables, phonemes, silences. When they combine...

Hansard is a fucking genius.

“Cause this is what you've waited for  
A chance to even up the score  
And as these shadows fall on me now  
I will somehow, yeah...

“Cause I'm picking up the message, Lord  
And I'm closer than I've ever been before  
So if you have something to say  
Say it to me now, just say it to me now, now  
Oh, oh, oh....”

A few coins, tossed from behind me and landing directly in my guitar case, a few seconds after the last notes of my voice ring out like a prayer sung in an otherwise empty cathedral, bouncing and doubling and doubling again off of the stones, using the stained glass as a sounding board. I've always had this autistic-like ability to identify the value of coins as they hit a hard surface.

“A quarter, a dime, and four pennies... you only count to thirty-nine, except for currency, calories, and chocolate... you can come around. You don't need to stay behind me, Hatsune Miku-sa... look, I can't be cold to you. At the least, may I please call you, minimum, Miku-san, again? Like a slight rewind?”

I can hear her fighting the smile that's forming. I can sense she's taken a step closer, still directly behind me. With a little chuckle I ask, “Is there a dagger hidden in your tie or something?” I hear this little suppressed giggle, like she's trying her hardest, using all of her effort, all of her poured into not even cracking even the slightest, smallest internal sliver of a grin.

So cute.

“Tell me about it?” her soft voice, like a little etude in gentleness, floats to me. “Put the guitar in its case, close the case, shut your eyes, count to thirty-nine, and tell me?”

'What the hell,' I find myself thinking, 'why not?' and I comply, like she has found some internal bypass to my ability to oppose. It's as I reach thirty-nine, I feel her chest to my back, her arms around my back, and her chin very lightly on my shoulder.

“Miku?” I say more than ask, letting her lead more than protesting. She just holds me tighter, acting almost like a blanket, wrapping me in her peace, in her warmth, taking me to a place of safety. She isn't even there, not in that warm, safe, peaceful place, not until I ‘think’ to her an imagined and imaginary invitation.

“It's safe” I hear her say, leaning into her. “If there is ever anything I can promise is reality and safety. Tell me?”

A deep breath as I consider letting her ‘in’ and letting her know. Another, a sigh so she knows to hold me just a little closer, just a little tighter, to give me one little sliver more protection from myself.

“Fast forward back six years ago. I was a sophomore in high school, a bit of a darling of the music and theatre programs. You know by now that I'm... a friend of mine and I... I won't say her name but... she and I call me ‘unstraight’. I'm gay, Miku. And I know you are, too. Your manga and anime collection told me, and so did you, on that 'sleepover'...

“Anyway... sophomore. I had... it was beyond a crush. I was this puppy, following her... Joanna... may she rot in Hell... and I always say it that way... I wasn't a stalker, but I tried to be in her ‘circle’... and...

“Her birthday party... I was invited, somehow... when it was time to go home... someone had snuck a pair of her panties and had them peek outside of my bag... so when the next school day... when I finally worked up the courage to ask her out... she recorded it, and ended it with, ‘Were my panties not enough? We all saw them out the top of your bag’ and the whole thing was sent to the whole school, even to...

“Each year, the incoming kids heard it all... and the assholes running the school... it wasn't there, so they didn't care. No one, conveniently, no one ever saw who painted ‘Dyke’ and ‘Where's my panties?’ on my locker... they billed me for it, and time and again, insisted I clean it off myself!

“Miku, you caught me doing... being... you saw me guilty now of what I was innocent of, then...”

I feel my hands ball up, the tears I fight back start to flow. I feel ‘cool’ Luka dissolve and be replaced by that ‘Broken Girl’ I don't want anyone to see. But, a miracle and a blessing and... and a... something... happens. She holds me closer, tighter, her warmth rebuilding me a few bricks, helping me return to being the real, true me, completely silently and in full stillness and without a single sign or tell telling me that it's safe for me to be the ‘cool’ Luka I know I really am, that the ‘cool’ Luka isn't a front or a mask.

“You've had no one, right?” I don't move, I don't let her have any response at all.

***

"You've had no one, right? Would it be so terrible, and this isn't charity, this isn't pity, this isn't sympathy. This is honesty. I heard you and I felt three things. Joy, that we could... that we can. Love, that we could... that we can... that we can share it. And terror. Not from any exterior ‘them’ or anything like that. Terror that I would hurt you.”

"Miku..."

"What?"

"Miku, we can't." It's like the first wall between ‘Luka’ and Luka is starting to crumble, like the outermost layer’s cracks widen and spread.

"What can't 'we' do?”

"Miku, we can't be--"

"We can't be, what, we can't be together? We can't be in love? We can't be happy?”

"You aren't--"

That last layer.

"I'm not, what, serious? I'm not realistic? I'm not being fair? Fuck fair, fuck being selfless, fuck being a caricature of myself.

“You're terrified. But not of me, right? And you're not terrified of an ‘us’ in any form, right? You're not even terrified of yourself. You're terrified of a past-tense ‘you’ and terrified of an evil homophobic bitch who set you up for some ‘reason’ even God wouldn't know. History repeats itself, right? If you let it!

“It wasn't me you were afraid of, it wasn't even you that you were afraid of. It was you and me, doing the same thing, like a hall of mirrors showing you then, now, and both you and a reflection of ‘you’. The ‘then’ you that Joanna May She Rot in Hell made up and the ‘now’ you, ‘lie’ ‘then’ you meeting ‘real’ ‘now’ you.

“I used to have a ‘not me’, with 'all' of 'me' being what people thought I was before I entered the room, before I was even in the building. I figured, bury 'it' down, bury 'it' deep, bury 'it' to the core of the world and that would make me happy because ‘it’ would be out of my sight, ‘it’ would be out of my mind. I wasn't ‘happy’. I was out of my mind, I was out of my self, I was out of all of me. Why? Because it became too hard to love anyone, and everything I sang, everything I said, even my whispers to my pillow at night were fake. I promised myself a long time ago never to lie unless it was to stop a crime, or if I had to lie to prevent someone -- anyone -- from being physical hurt. I'm not going to claim that you specifically were the one who unearthed that 'it' of me that I buried, but you were in my mind, before I even met you -- when I saw the honesty, the bleeding and raw and slashed and blazing honesty of your small shows -- that was me, the girl in a hoodie? The screaming-red one? The girl with the bright blue eyes, who looked just too, too much like me, who was always front row, smiling wide, dancing like an idiot? When I dragged 'it' -- when I dragged me \-- from that hole, from that grave, you were front-and-center motivation, you were front-and-center inspiration. When I heard 'Mikoto' and didn't know who you were really calling for, the first time, that was when I finished, when that last pile of shit had been cleared away and I was able to pull myself, to pull ‘me’ back from that hole. When I fell through your door, I wasn’t just falling out of the bathroom, and it wasn’t ‘just’ me ‘coming out of the closet’ either.

***

“I always knew that if there came a day I could no longer ‘bury’ who I am, that I’d know. Not in that schmaltzy first-sight way. I’d know that meeting ‘her’ would feel ‘soon’ and then ‘sooner’ and then ‘sooner than soon’ and at last ‘now!’ and that it wouldn’t be me falling...it wouldn’t...it...

“Luka, just...I didn’t ‘fall’ in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes open, choosing to take every step along the way. I believe in fate and destiny, I believe in all of that. But I also believe we are only fated to do the things we’d choose to do anyway. And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.

“Luka, Megurine Luka, I’ve found you, I’ve chosen you. I know what you’d said, who you’d called out for, and I know that you weren’t just moaning in lust. I know that you were singing in need, in your heart’s need, not just in that other form of ‘need’. Am I wrong?”

“You’re an eloquent little thing, you know that?”

“Am I wrong?”

“I found you, too.”

It's... thank the Thirty-nine Million Gods for dance lessons as I pull her up and twist around her, and to have that slight difference in the height of the rings of the fountain in Washington Square Park. I get to be face-to-face with her, diving from Earth to drown in the infinity of her perfect Caribbean blue eyes.

Her hand on my cheek is... it’s so soft. Long, slender fingers, cupping my cheek, soft, so soft. Healingly soft. I lean in, she leans in and, as I feel my face move to hers, as my lips move to hers, my eyes stay open except to blink the tears away. And Luka, sweet, beautiful, elegant, gentle, smoky Luka, as Luka’s eyes, those pools of infinitely deep, unendingly bright azure I am drowning in, are open too.

“Time to awaken, Sleeping Beauty...” she says, her voice as soft as a butterfly's flutter. I'm holding back a giggle, trying to let the kiss come first. But I can't. A little arpeggio, C-D-E-G-C matches hers, note for note, same key, same octave, same tempo. It isn't my song. And it isn't her song either. It's ‘ours’.

Eyes link to eyes, her hand on my cheek, my hand on hers. I move in that last little fraction of a centimeter. My so, so meager chest pressing against her comfortingly more generous breasts. Her other hand presses against the small of my back as mine slowly glides upon her clothed spine. Luka’s breath is tickling me, just enough to make me feel relaxed. Right before that first contact of my lips and hers, I manage to whisper but one word.

  
“I--”

“--me too.”

That first brush of her lips on mine is an explosion of soft, sweet, tenderness. This is... no words. Her tongue’s tip tickles my top lip, then the bottom, and back to the top, and our first sound is a shared giggle, from me to her, from her to me, from us to ‘us’ as I part my lips just enough to grant entry after so polite a ‘knock’. She’s just as playful as I had been serious but a minute earlier, curling and cuddling her tongue around mine, taunting and teasing me, leading me to follow her sweet invader, to go from ‘conquered’ to ‘conqueror’ as we laugh ‘We’ into existence. My hand moves up and down her spine slower, lighter, a dance of bliss as the sweet pressure at the small of my back increases so so slowly, as our laughed kiss, our kissed laughter fades to a close.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Luka giggles almost imperceptibly.

“I’ve kissed in dreams, and in...‘dreams’ too...but that’s not...this, just now, this is the first kiss that matters. I don’t want to kiss anyone else. Ever. My lips? They belong to you. Look at them? See? All of a sudden, through ‘We’-magic, your name? Your name’s all over them.”

“Mine have your name on them now, too. See?”

As she is about to lean in, to make sure, to re-imprint our names on each other, my watch chimes again. About half an hour has gone by since I had spotted her and her guitar.

“Pretty sure that your ‘first kiss that matters’... that it is the one that is my ‘first kiss that matters’, too..."

“‘Pretty sure’...?”

“Once is a fluke, and twice,” our kiss resumes, just where we had left off, a playful duel, back and forth, little laughs passed from and to her, passed to and from me, and just as long. “Twice is a coincidence, but three times?” A third, silk, pure silk, long and tender and heavenly.

“Three times means it is yours, yours to own, and real...”

Somehow, through some fluke of wonderfulness, some preordained miracle of fate, she knows what I am going to say, and in this sotto voce, not begging and not praying but thanking it, thanking each other, thanking this new ‘We’, she and I say in unison, “yours, yours to own, and real, and perfect.”

“C'mon. Let's get you back home.” I put a slight emphasis on that last word, to remind her that she lives where I do, nightmares or no, past or no. I know she hasn't told me all of it, but that's for another day. Now is for celebrations, an idea that causes no small amount of giddy glee, calmed by my nervousness and hopes, my little insecurities and big desires.

Her pout is...I swear she’s copied me without having seen me. “I didn’t say we can’t kiss elsewhere, aside from here. Aside from this park...”

“We won’t be fit for polite society any more.” Her grin is equal parts love, lover, and madwoman.

I'm legitimately confused, a fact I exaggerate. “Why?” Whatever her answer will be, I'm already anticipating it in many ways, some more... PG... than others.

“I won’t be able to take my hands off of you ever again.”

***

We run like fools, laughing maniacs, her small, soft hand in mine, at times pulling me, at times pulled, as we make our way, as we prove that if you go long enough the wrong way, you'll eventually go the path you should have taken from the start, infecting all of those around us with glee and girlish giggles and explosions of newfound, long, long, far too long delayed joy.

A simple two blocks north on Fifth Avenue would have had us back home -- back home at our home -- in minutes. But our game without rules easily makes those minutes fly by, and add up to far closer to an hour.

Half the outer edge of Washington Square Park. Another three blocks to Christopher Street. Me wagging my finger at Miku when she tries to lead us into the Stonewall Inn, she sticking her tongue out at me, me exaggerating a whisper of “Soon,” only for her to give my other hand a playful little squeeze, tugging me to her again. It's become an accidental game, tugging and tugged, each the other's kite, and each the other's string, kisses at each red light, taking off like a gust of wind has hit us.

Each the other's.

Soon enough, we notice that, like drunken tourists, we've gone around and around -- up Christopher, up Waverly, down Seventh, and repeat -- but not once, not twice, orbiting that triangle three times at the least, drowned in togetherness, all too drunk with joy, all too delirious with delays dissolving, with only ‘We’ remaining. I see where Miku gets her energy. It's little moments like this, little ticks of the clock, an engine that turns happiness into explosions of frenetic bursts of cheer.

She has her left foot and left hand anchoring her to hang off the side of a lamppost, twirling around it, laughing, this allegretto of smiles, sung in this medley of melodies, all the moments that led to this one.

“Get down, sillygirl!”

“Nope!”

I can only smirk. Leaning to help her to step off of the base, like some coachman assisting her from an invisible carriage, I fire her my biggest grin, my eyes wild. “Ohime-sama, it is almost midnight. Or do you wish I revert to a pumpkin?” I have no idea where that came from. Well, not all of it. I press a few buttons on what she'd named the 'armcoder'. Giving her a single fingertip to her lips, I fish my headset from my guitar case. A few more taps and pushing a couple of sliders tell the armcoder to only broadcast to her and to me. I have it set to a delay, the volume just high enough that it will barely tickle the edges of our consciousness.

We go inside, and up the stairs. As she moves to remove her shoes, I tap her shoulder and, not a word said aloud, shake my head. Up to the second floor, turning to go to the third, and up once more, passing through the studio and dancing rehearsal space, and up once more, to exit to our roof. “I have the key, I promise,” I smile to her. A hand rests at the small of her back, the other still in her own. I can't let go again.

I won't let go again.

Aside from this one time, aside from now. A quick tap upon the armcoder, a little cup of her chin. A brief kiss, chaste but dizzying, simple but intoxicating, light but crazymaking, letting go as I whisper, “Ohime-sama, may I have this dance?” I'm fully serious, not a giggle or a chuckle, but not dour or downbeat. Pulling her closer to me, I place my other hand a little more firmly at the small of her back, as the opening flourish begins, the mezzoforte first few bars quiets into a pianissimo, three-four tempo di waltz, and “Sleeping Beauty” a la Tchaikovsky plays, for us, for us alone.

***

We're clumsy, we two professional musicians, trained to have, well, no, really we're both born with a perfect sense of rhythm, tripping over ourselves and stumbling over each other, smiling sweetly, her heart and mine, her soft gazing Caribbean pools drowning me as she submerges herself in my eyes. Beats become seconds become minutes, and then the minutes fly and vanish. The waltz repeats once, then twice. A third run through.

I feel Luka slowly bury her head in my shoulder, and we might as well be in a cocoon, twirling in a world without any form of gravity, a universe of she, me, ‘We’, the waltz, and stars. Pulling her closer, I have but one question: “Please, Luka... please, one more coda?” The feel of her lips on the side of my neck makes me buckle, but she holds me aloft. The piece restarts from just after the flourish and, spin and twirl, advance and retreat, we share a smile as we share one moment, one minute, one second. And, just before we return to the house, a bow from her, a curtsy from me, and down we go, descending from one heaven to another.

“Meet me in... in... our room, Luka?” My voice isn't choked up from some sense of sentimentality or drama-overload. It's nothing as silly as that, and she and I both know it. It's simply from how saying “our room” is something we've both wanted and now that we do have it, it'll take some getting used to. “Just... give me two minutes?” I'm not firing a fiendish look, but I'm not expressionless either. Luka probably sees my head is down and eyes are up, my hands behind my waist, my left foot planted flat as my right pivots back and forth at my toes.

I don't need to see her reaction really, I know it, and I feel it, but as if my head is moved for me, I look up and my eyes and hers link, my smile widens, and I mouth the words, “two minutes.”

Luka's long, slender fingers brush my cheek and, with a taunt, “one nineteen... one eighteen...”

I don't hear the rest, slipping into... our... room. I don't rush. I don't need to: Luka is going to slow her countdown anyway, but I know it's more for her than for me.

Kinda.

It's for both of us, letting me be ready... and ‘ready’... for her, and even as my pulse is a drum machine at its maximum, I feel I have the time to take off a boot, a sock, the other, the other, all at a ‘relaxed’ pace. My pulse notwithstanding. Nude, in every way there is, I lay myself out for her, for me.

For ‘we’.

***

She's as nervous as I am. She must be. How could she not be? Miku, sweet and adorable and beautiful and silly. Tender and childish and charming and strong. Smart and spoiled and multi-talented and surprising. Energetic and fashionable and musical and bashful.

“Thirty nine...”

All at once.

Miku, read what I can't say? Please? From somewhere in me, from my face, my posture, my silences, please, Miku, find it written somewhere on me or in me to read what I can't say? Please?

Even so, it's words. All of those words are words. You're so much more, more than what you can let them see. You're so much more, more than I will ever see. You're so much more, more than you have seen in yourself yet; I can only hope you let me be with you when you see it, to see a glimpse of you, to let that moment of pure radiance blind me.

“Thirty nine...”

To touch your star and be burned to ashes.

May I look, Miku? May I hear, Miku? May I touch, Miku? May I smell, Miku? May I even be allowed to taste, Miku?

May I love you like you, like only you would grant me... would bless me... with the Honor of loving you?

May I love you, Miku? But not as a fan, distant and abusing the term, and not as a friend, despite how close, and not as a lover, casual and fickle? May I love you as your own, owned and owning, wholly loving you in whole?

I never knew you as you, sweetness, just as a fan, a friend. But now, standing here, as this copper-tongued near-panic all-but-paralyzed 'me', all I can do is look.

I'm not judging, Miku. At least, I'm not judging you. Judging myself, just a little bit. Ok, judging myself a lot, for making this moment so difficult for me. Then, dancing like you did on our roof just minutes ago, I feel, dancing at the edges of my mind, that this moment, this sliver of time, needed... no, needs -- it needs to be as difficult as it is, for me, for you, for us... for ‘We’ to exist with the sheer and wondrous maze of feelings, this massive and miraculous labyrinth of uncertainty, for all of it to have the entire jumble of... whatever terms there are and aren't... that ‘easy’ and ‘We’ are mutually exclusive.

“Thirty nine...”

Benzaiten-sama, help me please...?

The door opens itself. Or at least it seems like it does. My hand, I know, is on the doorknob, and the knob turned. My arm, I know, straightened, I know, but my body is moving of its own accord, disconnected from my own sense of control, and I'm only aware of my movements after they've completed. Stillness, motion, stillness, a series of transitions so smooth it has only a dreamlike, vague semblance of continuity. My eyes are too heavy to keep open, but too light to close, so a compromise comes into being: my head tilts but my eyes remain open, my vision narrows to only see the floor and my toes.

“Thirty nine...” I say again, entering... our... room.

My mind somehow clears just enough for me to raise my head, and to have another first. Our first time seeing and being seen. My smile is slight, but it's evident and it’s warm and it's genuine. My feet feel chained and lighter than air, my body like it is in a tiptoeing sprint. All of me feels like this jumble of contradictions, and I am celebrating this terrifyingly glorious sliver of time, never to come again.

Remember everything, I find myself thinking. Remember each and every single little thing. Remember how the floor feels, the weight the door had, the silence where I had expected to have my pulse echoing like a thunderstorm, the stillness of my breath, and the chill of the air upon my skin.

Remember everything. Each and every single wonderful and terrifying thing. Remember how it all is summed up in one simple word.

‘We’.

One last blink before the brink.

Miku is on her side, propped up by one arm, one leg pulled in slightly, the other outstretched, her foot moving up and down slowly. I can see her. I can see all of her. And I can see her. She's not naive about what she's doing. She's not playing a role. She's not doing anything other than Miku being Miku. 「Miku wa Miku ga eien ni...」 The curtains are drawn enough to supplement the soft lighting directed on her... on the... on our bed. She's directly at the middle of the bed, the covers peeled back, and what seems like every pillow in the house neatly placed at the head of the bed. Miku is fully nude, and she is glorious that way, art and perfection and nervous sweetness, wearing a smile just as warm and shy as mine.

I thought she would be...

She's just as terrified as I am. I'm standing here, a nervous idiot, nude, with my arms at my sides, with my legs open just enough for her to see that traitorous part of me, just enough for her to be able to see that which made me give in and surrender to my need for her, that stopped me and urged me on, both at once, made me need my fingers, made me need 'hers’, made and making me need hers, leaving that perfect part of me, that Divine Lust, to give in to her, the real her, not 'Miku' but Miku, so she can know how, fully nude as I am, my need is being held back, so she can see how much I am wanting her, wanting Miku, needing her, needing Miku, eager beyond words for her to receive what meager gifts this acolyte might bring to Her.

Look again, see all there is to see.

Remember.

Remember everything.

Remember every single glorious, blessed, Holy thing. Remember the room, the flow of the naked air and how it's tickling my skin, the soft lighting of the candles she snuck in while I blinked, the source of... our... bed's light, the feel of the carpet under my feet.

And remember her, remember Miku, propping herself up on one arm, the other lazily resting upon her waist, one leg pulled in a little, the other outstretched, her dainty foot bobbing slowly.

I take awe, comfort, joy, and worship in that I can remember this, in that will remember this: she isn't giving herself to me. This isn't a birthday gift, or charity, Christmas, Valentine's Day or White Day, or drunkenly making all the wrong choices.

No.

She's giving herself -- Miku is giving herself wholly and completely and fully -- Miku, beautiful, adorable, sweet, tender, smart, silly, energetic, childish, strong, multi-talented, charming, surprising, energetic, musical, bashful, fashionable, surprising Miku -- Miku is giving herself to me, to herself, to the two of us.

To 'We'.

Miku is giving herself to the same sliver of possibility, to the same monad of hope, to the same miracle that is teetering on the edge of creation, that Divine Idea we've both, on our own, independently and blinded to each other by our own fears, hoped and prayed and dreamed and worked for.

Miku is giving herself to it, as I am giving myself to it, as the two of us are surrendering ourselves to one single, Blessed world in one word.

'We.'

Ok. Look again. Look at her, at Miku. See her, see Miku. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe...

I "flip a coin in my head" and ignore how it 'lands'. With a full body blush, with my eyes just blurred enough to need a trio of quick blinks, feeling myself don a soft, feather's touch of a smile, I look and see her, look and see Miku, drowning in her from head to toe.

I want to say something here, something that fits the moment, that fits my feelings, that fits my need for 'We'. Benzaiten-sama, I need Your help as much as You deem appropriate?

"Wow."

She shifts slightly, her own smile growing by a millimeter or two, so slight it's itself a gift to treasure, an offering to 'We.' Her blush deepens, another treasure, another offering to 'We'.

"Wow."

Miku's twintails, aquamagreen, straight and neat, flow around her, ribbons of a tropical sea, one beside the arm holding her upright, the other draped over her left eye and cheek, a waterfall of hair that just barely fails to hide her twin pools of blue infinity, staring at me with hope, with fear, with strength, with surrender, with everything and nothing at once. Her smile, lily white-toothed, widens another millimeter, another treasure, another offering to 'We' as I see her 'boop'-begging little nose, upturned just enough to make her look like she had to cope with one too many sneezes. Her face...I am fighting the need to squirm just from her heart-shaped, brilliant blue-eyed, tropical lagoon-haired, 'boop'-begging, softly-smiling, blushing cream-toned, heart-shaped face.

If she wants, if she will let me, I will follow her permission to give in to the urge to mark her neck with little nibbles, to be less than discreet upon her collarbones, 'claiming' her not for me, but for 'We.' All of her is the same cream of her face, even her arms, toned but slender, with thin wrists I want to bathe in little kisses, small, soft hands with slender fingers that callouses seem to know not to touch. I wonder how she will react if I suckle on each finger, one by one by...

No.

No wondering or fantasizing or imagining.

Not tonight.

Tonight belongs to 'We.'

Tonight is when fantasies start to end, when realities, one, the next, the next, take their place through touches and laughter, dead ends and tears. Yes, there will be more nights, more to learn and to treasure. But that means also that I stop dreaming and just do.

Miku's shoulders are so slender and slight she looks fragile. All of her looks delicate, so delicate that she is ready to crumble to dust at any second. But she's not -- she stood up to me, to my fears, to herself, to her own. She could lift the world, hold the universe upon her pinkie.

O! Thirty-nine million Gods...

I catch sight of her head and her eyes sneaking a glimpse of my breasts, trying to be subtle as she locks eyes with me again, as she is back to that warm, kind, gentle, soothing smile. Silly sweet Miku, it isn't that yours are too small. A pair of halved-oranges, with nipples like Dots candy bullseyes on targets smaller than a quarter. They look so firm, so perfect, designed to be held and massaged with only the tenderest of soft caresses and the sweetest of little teases. No, my love, no. They are not too small. Mine are too big. Yours?

Perfect.

If I didn't see her appetite, I would swear she starves herself. But she definitely can be voracious. And ‘voracious’...? No, no, no! Bad Luka. Bad! But... at least... please, Benzaiten-sama, please let her be ticklish, in 'that' way? Her tummy is a magnet to my fingers, and they have been from Day One. I swear she was designed to enjoy...and 'enjoy'...being tickled.

To-do...

Another little shift as I look to her waist and to what hides not that far 'south' -- a small patch of painstakingly neat aquamagreen, like a grove no bigger than a postage stamp on its side, a thatch of delicate fleece. But beyond is kept clear, pristine, flawless. Her mons is a "coffee bean" of femaleness, her inner folds "tucked in" save for at the top, where the entrance to that sensitive 'cave' just barely peeks out. All of her Divine Venusian treasures, all are waiting for her permission.

For her invitation.

A blink later and my eyes refocus, my gaze transfixed on her unblemished hips, cream and curved, her knees, her runway model knees, and down just a little more. I had thought that Miku must have a reason for her penchant for boots. A tattoo had always been my theory. But why my theory is proven correct by an intricate and delicate bubblegum-pink butterfly on the inside of her left ankle... why that?... why there?

Looking lower, just as low as there is to look...

They're so petite and soft and cute, she could model shoes if she wanted to. She could model sandals, even. Soft soles, just the right width, and with such tiny toes. To be sure, for me, it's only an interest, an option, a possibility if she wants, if she wants. Granted, it is one that has factored into... one or two... okay, some... nights. Not all, no, but some. Even before 'We', each night had varied ways, touches, paths, all to hope to glimpse her, all with the same universal underlying need: to surrender to her needs before and at the same time as she submits to my own.

There's so much to her, so so much beauty and sweetness and cuteness that worshiping at her "altar of 'We'" is mind-igniting, overriding all of me, unmaking and remaking me, demolishing and rebuilding me, short-circuiting and rewiring me, all in giving me one single desire, one desire with infinite fetishes, countless interests, unlimited ideas, unending options. And all of it, all that remains after everything is burned away, all that remains is one single, unifying and unified need.

'We.'

She asks, so softly, so sweetly, her voice no louder than a snowflake falling on a silent night, sounding submissive and strong, terrified and brave, ready and not.

"Am I...?"

I can only smile, beaming with pride that in this room, on this bed, that in our room, that onour bed, that here, looking at me, at me, seeing me, seeing me, is she, the only one to have ever entered my heart, the only one to have ever conquered me, the only one to have ever claimed me, the only one ever to join me in 'We.' I can only shift, hoping to Benzaiten-sama, to Amaratesu-sama, to all Thirty-nine million Gods, that she finds me acceptable. First, though, first, before my own verdict...

"Perfect. And... and me?"

***

She's always been hurt. Her songs always made me want to climb up on stage and take off the hood of my sweater and hug her, hold her, bury her in all I could give. But then her set would end and I'd have to hide again, until I was 'home' again. But Luka's here now, standing so nervously, like a military inspection is underway. It's not sad. It's cute. I'm so fully hers now, this might as well be a concert.

Well, there hopefully will be some 'singing' soon...

Down girl.

How does she keep her hair so perfect? I want to just run my fingers through that almost tush-length straight bubblegum hair. No split ends, no kinks, just perfect hair? Grrr. Not fair. Not fair!

Calm. Calm. Calm. Luka.

Look at her, look at Luka. Good, I'm nervous again.

That worked well.

Her eyes... are they the same blue as me? We'll need a photo together to tell. Maybe in a few mi... no, bad, guaranteed that'll be on the net in minutes! Sure, I want to shout it from the rooftops, and I know she does too, but we'd both lose our voice. It can wait. But... but...

Ok. Zero-One? Calm, Hatsune Miku. Calm...

She looks healed and hurt, like I've done her some good and hurt her all over again, just as badly, just as deeply, right after. But she's smiling so fully, her whole face is absolutely beaming. Her little ears are too cute, and I'm just melting for her, just from those blue, blue eyes and the thin-lipped, snow white-toothed smile, and her little nose. I'm going to bury her in kisses. I have to -- I want to, she wants me to, too. God, one sliver wider of her smile and I'll be a grinning idiot of a girl!

I wonder what she'd do if I nommed her neck a bit? It's a perfect target, just like her shoulders, just like all of her. I love her arms, so long and slender and toned, her thin wrists, her pianist's fingers...

Oh God, her chest. Her breasts are just... I always used to wish I was just a little bigger. But I see now. Her smile tells me, and I know she's right -- I would look horrible with breasts her size, or anything even larger than the ones I have right now. But... on her... on Luka, all I can think of is bringing her to screaming crazy squirming heaven just from her breasts. Hopefully. She's as thin as me, her stomach is so flat and... I know how moths feel near candles now.

I know that squirm. Every time I met her gaze, the second she looked away, I felt it, the need to squirm just like she is, at times bad enough I would bite the tip of my thumb. But now, now I can do something about it. I never thought her the type to shave completely but, really, seeing her cunny is bare, it fits, everything tidy and tight, naked and neat but for one short, narrow patch just barely to the 'north'.

Perfect.

Luka just taught me something... what "legs go all the way down to the floor" means. Her rear is perfect -- I can't see now, but I've looked. And looked. And looked. God her legs are just made for dancing, so strong and lean and fit. Mmmm... Luka's knees are Divine, and her ankles, too. And seeing her tiny little itty-bitty toes scrunching on the plush of the carpet... It's like she's trying to hide them from me but have me catch her hiding them, so she can 'accidentally' wind up showing them to me instead. Will she like it if I touch them to tease her a bit? Just to grind her pretty little head to a halt...?

Or perhaps do a little more than just that...?

Ok, easy. Breathe. There is only an infinite number of firsts, right? And right now, the first mistake. Ok, she saw all of me, I can feel it. Let's go!

Right now, this moment, this minute, this second... her hair is making me jealous, so straight and long, not needing to be bundled into 'tails... a cotton candy waterfall...

But... first...

She's too beautiful... too precious... too perfect... she is too her for me to look so quickly, to not call a “do-over” and start again, to give her the same head to toe drowning I felt she just gave to me. It's not even that I “owe” her, or that I “owe” it to myself. It isn't even that I want to. It's that we both want me to, and tonight, that means that ‘We’ needs me to, to put it in the way I can tell she'd phrase it. My smile widens, my eyes open just that millimeter wider, and I re-begin from scratch, my little nervous first erased, “retconned” to say it like an Otaku.

My finger lures her to me, hooked up and beckoning her as I move a little more towards the farther edge of the bed, giving her the room to mirror me, her head resting on one hand, laying on her side, as she drapes her other arm lazily over her waist. Luka has one leg straight, the other bent just enough for her foot to move about idly. She's copying my position exactly.

I reach out my fingers to trace her cheek, giving her every sliver of peace and calm and safety I've ever felt myself. So soft. Her cotton candy hair is just draped around her, pouring over her neck, some atop her shoulders, some strewn over her face, some behind her. “Poetry, Atashi no Ai.” Her little sigh is all I need to know I said exactly what needed to be said, no more, no less.

I'm staring into her eyes, and from the twin pools of Caribbean ocean blue to her button of a nose, to the all is peace, all is right, all is perfect smile that isn't only directed at me, or because of me, or even to me. It's not only a smile at, because and to her. It's a smile with me, because and at and to ‘We’.

I don't know how I am channeling her on this ‘We'-poetry, but I also don't care. It's yet another link, another connection, another bond. Considering how much we put ourselves through, and how much we put each other through, now is when we share what we can touch and see and hear, what we can smell and taste, what we think and feel.

What we know.

Her jawline is round and feminine, safe and inviting, like all of her, calling me “collect” to share from the pleasure I help her feel. There's no giving of pleasure, and certainly no such thing as...

“We share it, not make it, Luka-chan.”

She smiles even more warmly, as if such a concept is possible beyond sweet theories and sweeter dreams. “Poetry, Miku” is all she says, Luka finishing my thought.

My hand glides from her cheek to her shoulder, and from there down her trim, fit arm. My fingers knit with hers, and a so, so soft little coo escapes from us both, just at that first touch of her arm, at feeling how her fingers, longer but just as slender as my own, are unimaginably soft, like her guitar strums itself by thought. She has inched forward, tic by tock of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, and now one of her legs is between mine, and I've mirrored her at some point. Luka lets go of my hand and stretches her arm over her head, laying her head upon her bicep.

As one hand continues to trek along her collarbone, the other dips up and down Luka's back, a cello bow playing one long, pianissimo note on her spine. “I have to,” I say, my finger gliding to her chest, a figure of eight, skating my fingertip as slow as I can, giving a slight, sly smile at that hitch, that catch in her breathing when my finger passes her breasts' most tender patch. “Perfect,” I giggle, dragging the back of my fingernail beneath her breasts for her breath to stutter again. “You have perfect breasts.” Leaning in, I give the top of each a little peck, and a matching set of sweet kisses for her nipples.

I love that little note, and I can see, anyone could see, that it is... getting to her. My hand keeps that pace, my other hand dipping down just enough to cup and give her rear a brief massaging squeeze. She sings a moan and, sliding back up, I look at her taut tummy, fit and, perhaps, ticklish? I need to know. It's time I know. It's time 'We' knows. My fingers move from beneath her breasts to play a scherzo upon her stomach, and my lips meet hers, kissing her laughter and mine into one medley of shared mirth as my fingers slow, moving back to trace the sides and tops and valley of her breasts, skipping the undersides entirely, until she is calm once more. My other hand moves from her tush and around her, like a belt, carefully, carefully not dipping too low, but smiling at how she keeps herself, bare but for a “landing strip” of cotton candy, just “north” enough for my hand to have a place to rest, to plateau her need and drive her mad.

South, south, south I look, seeing how lean but muscled her legs are, how strong but feminine they are. I can't help but have my eyes sneakthief, probably long enough to be caught, seeing how her cunny looks so beautiful, all neat and tight, all hidden and waiting for the right 'key' to "unlock her." Her cleft, pristine and perfect, is patient, glistening very slightly, with only a little faint dew. Just as my eyes’ detour would be obvious, I look south to her knees, her ankles, and to a pair of petite feet and tiny toes.

"Luka? Love? I... please? Come here? I need you. Here... just... just like that, hold me and..."

The rest we both know. A kiss continues, picking up where we left off on the roof, from our trek home, from our third, our second, our first, all as if we solely exist in that nervous, gloriously nervous moment before lips first met lips. I'm... her... our... so sweet and gentle and... it's like... I don't even know.

"Perfect..." we say at the same time.

***

Licking her top lip, her bottom lip, back to the top, 'knocking' on the 'door'. My right hand cups her cheek, softly trying to brush her aquamagreen locks from hiding her face, my left hand slowly, barely more than a red leaf in the lightest possible breeze, brushes up and down her back, avoiding the mousetrap of her tiny tush, sliding just up enough to be at the back of her shoulder before skiing a zigzag back down her spine. She kisses her little giggle to me, me to her, as she falls, unable to keep herself propped up, landing atop me, in my arms, our kiss breaking just enough for a short and shared laugh, just enough for us to move a bit on the bed.

Miku atop me, in my arms, a leg between hers just enough to feel the fire of her femaleness, just far enough to not make contact. The kiss deepens by slowing, grows more intense by growing gentler. I decide to test the waters, my left hand drumming a chord on her side, kissing her laughter, she mine, the two of us playing together, with each other, on each other.

But as she drags her toes upon my sole, from heel to arch to instep to ball to toes, and back, from toes to ball to arch to instep to heel, me singing a little moan to her, I cannot let the touch go without a bit of 'revenge', me doing the same to her. It's sweet, light play, and we both learn we have a shared... point of interest. My tickling on her ribs grows faster, and she squirms, her head moving just enough from mine to speak, a little moaned pout.

"Not fair..."

So I give her nose a peck of a 'boop'.

"Luka!"

I slow my fingers and they resume being a bow upon the cello of her back, an arco in largo. Eyes meet eyes, soul meets soul, and through our kissing, slow, gentle, tender, sweet, 'We' grows, a kernel of rice at a time. Feet in games, hands in strokes of roaming randomness, as time halts all influences upon this bed, upon me, upon Miku.

Upon ‘We’.

“We don't have to.” I want her certain, I want to hear her certainty, to cement me into my own. “I've been yours since forever, and that means that you've been in charge of me since even before then.” I have no idea what I am saying except that I know I need her to give me an ahead of time form of affirmative consent. Consensual consent. Holding her to me, nudity upon nudity, feeling her warmth on me, kissing little pecks upon her cheek, rubbing her nose with my own. I have my eyes open, drowning myself by staring into hers. My hand still cradles her cheek, the other calmed and calming as I trail a lazy path straight up and down her spine. Little games continue as her toes on my soles continue to trek, heel to arch, and arch to instep, and from instep to ball, ball to toes, and back, my own the same series of soft sweet little touches, climbing as she descends, descending as she climbs.

“We do have to, Megurine Luka-sama... I... I need you to and you need you to, too. ‘We’ needs you to.” She isn't begging, nor is she speaking from any animal form of need. She’s right. ‘We’ needs us to. A long, deep kiss as my eyes dive ever deeper, as I feel readier, readier still, as I feel her confidence become my own. I was created just so that this moment would happen. As was Miku, atom by atom forged so that this 'now' would occur. My hand leaves her cheek and, as if reading me, not just reading the situation, and not just by reading my mind, or heart, or soul, but by reading me, she lowers her hand, fingers linking and locking. She can sense my nerves and my desires and steals a page from my playbook, giving my nose a quick peck.

That one little giggle is all it takes. Her ear is too enticing a target and I nibble just a little. Ok, more than a little. A puff of air from me and she arches her back. Another puff and she arches farther. “Be vocal, Ohime-sama,” I ask, drawing out the final syllable. Her so so small, silk-soft hand clenches mine as I kiss and nip along her chin and the cords of her neck.

“That...” she coos, “that would be a given.”

All I can do is give a long suckling kiss at that magical pulse point along her shoulder, my hand moving from her back to her side, just resting there, letting her wonder what and when and how. I live to spoil her, and that means, “No spoilers, Miku...” Her groan of tortured need is all the thanks in the world. “And no hints, either. Only if I do something you don't like. Otherwise, I want to learn you. I need to learn you. I need... I need you.” My kisses stay just as sweet, just as slow, a hand brushing one of her rivers of hair from her eyes. Cupping that revealed cheek, my other hand slides from her back to her shoulder, then shoulder to forearm, tracing slowly, slowly around her wrist. As Miku's small hand, and her fingers, slender and soft, knit around mine, I kiss each knuckle, and press my lips to the back of her hand.

“You be a kite, fly as high as you want. I'll be your kite string and I'll keep you tethered.” I kiss the back of her hand again. My other hand glides along her cheek, taking a few strands of her hair to my lips. Her hair is these twin rivers of spring onion green, kelp and honey-scented. They flow between my fingers, randomly falling about her, with only my fingertips giving them a little direction, a little order, so I can still see her sweet, soft, brilliantly blue eyes, her dot of a nose, and that smile.

She's a mind reader and a conductor at the same time, having stacked a bunch of pillows ar the head of the bed, just enough to give me support to lean back, my legs open only wide enough for her to climb to me, her back against my chest, shifting down so my hands have room, her head angled just enough to the side for her eyes to lock on mine, for her aquamagreen ribbons and my cotton candy waterfall to flow and dance upon each other, for soft words and softer brushes of my lips on hers, of hers on mine. Wrapping an arm to drape over her shoulders, my hand just rests there, my other hand brushing from cheek to ribs and back.

Letting out this pianissimo song of a sigh, my lips brush the top of her head, my fingertips skate from her cheek to her neck and along her collarbone, one continuous motion, not even stopping as my fingers draw the slowest figure of eight. Slow, so very slow as my index finger draws above and down through the “valley”, slower still at my finger trails beneath, as I hear the faintest catch in her breathing.

Kiss after kiss to her ear as I move my fingertips, the Dots candy bullseye on a bottlecap-sized target getting a playful, exploratory pull to hear a squeal of delight, to feel her tuck in tighter to my side, a squeal louder and a tuck tighter when I tighten and add a quick yank, the sweet song a softer cooing as I wet my fingers, my index finger on a slow, slow path, first kissed by her lips before I drag it down her chin, the back of my fingers gliding down her neck, skating as light as air between her full, rounded mounds.

“Perfect,” I whisper to her, another kiss, long, never-ending, and in its softness hotter than the sun. Her breast is a magnet to my hand, squeezing and massaging as if I was a baker with the finest dough ever to exist. Between releases and resuming my firm ministrations, my thumb dips beneath, gliding as tenderly as I can. Squirming in my lap, a soft keening in her voice, pleading through her eyes, I let go, my finger on a figure of eight, beneath a breast, up the valley, above, beside, beneath, and again ascending that valley, music, a pianissimo of pleasure, a glissando from alto to a groaned catch at the edge of her range.

My eyes tell her, show her, send to her, share with her all that lacks words. May I live thirty-nine million lifetimes, each thirty nine billion aeons long, she beside me, Benzaiten-sama, and may we be cursed to be blessed to never find the words. May we both be cursed to be so blessed that only looks and touches suffice to approximate our hearts.

Miku pulls her mouth from mine to moan a little louder, and to pull herself to have her side fully tucked into me, still seated in my lap, looping my arm under hers, moving herself so I can shift a hand to continue at her chest, the other like a bow on a cello, descending down her stomach, down a thigh, tracing, skating, skiing, gliding from her innermost thigh and up, up, up, just below her waist and dipping to slide below that aquamagreen patch of light, soft fleece, and up, up, up to her waist, down, down, down her other inner thigh, a tall, mind breaking, elongated ‘M’, giving her more by giving her less.

She squirms and, by accident, I swear by accident, my fingertips brush up that solar-hot coffee bean, feeling her wine's first droplets, her sweet dew starting to coat my flower's flower. Even with her song growing louder, more throaty, more, well, more, my hand dips deeper, still tracing right at that Divine pulse point, still playing a glissando up, up, up her thigh, still just as slow, just as barely present, lighting her up by degrees, making her squirm and squirm and squirm, her voice a desperate keening as every pass gives my fingers more and more and more of her cunnywine.

Miku's pained voice, said with the widest smile, the most serene Caribbean blue blissed stare, whispering “Please, Luka?”

“Hmm? Nani, Ohime-sama?”

“Please? Luka?”

My hands stop, and I shoot her a purely evil look, all touches suspended, letting her hang there, bound and shackled, barely able to hold on to her composure, barely even sane. “Ohime-sama, ‘please’... what?” My Look of Evil intensifies, and as I fuel it, good through evil, I whisper, silently, only “Now?” Miku nods a little, rapidly, swallowing hard. I cannot keep the Look of Evil going, but I ask, silently, wordlessly, thought to thought, soul to soul, heart to heart, “As you wish, Atashi no Ai. As you wish.” My Look of Evil morphs into one of serenity and frenzy combined, my own need, feeling pleasure from by giving pleasure to her, reaches a limit.

No touch I could have given myself, even when I had been “holding ‘her'”, no touch I could have received from myself, or from any other, nothing imaginable, nothing even conceived as folly, nothing within the boundaries of thought compare to the feelings of Miku's involuntary twitches, or the peaceful breakneck thunderstorm pace of her heart, the silence of her screams, the aria of her voice held back, her heat and wetness. My fingers slow on the figure of eight before massaging her halved-orange breast, my pinkie tracing like a pendulum beneath. My other hand cups her mons, dragging my palm to rock against her inferno, wet, so, so wet as my middle finger teases between the base of that aquamagreen grove and the top of her cave, teasing its shy inhabitant, the slick, soaked button of bliss.

“Luka... anata... atashi no ai... please... please may I come? Please please please may I come?”

I give her a smile of my heart, my eyes linking her twin pools of Caribbean blue to mine. We drown ourselves in that one look, surrendering to each other's undertow as my hair falls like a curtain around us, creating a world just for us, a veil of cotton candy, a universe with a population of one -- ‘We’. All I say, my hand turning over, my middle and ring fingers slowly, so slowly, sanity-shatteringly slowly enter her. Miku's tightness, her hotness, her wetness around those two digits... it's like coming home. My hand is slow but firm, gently entering and curling to press the roof of her cave, straightening to withdraw just a little, advancing to press again.

Raking my pinkie fingernail beneath her breast, kneading that firm, soft, round, full halved orange, and advancing and pressing my middle and ring finger upon that sacred, soft, wet ceiling, I give her a slow, sweet smile. She bucks and twitches as I feel my fingers and palm wet, soaked, drenched by the most precious, sacred, Divine ambrosia. Her face is one of sanity and madness competing, pained smiles, even a pair of tears escaping to trail to her cheeks.

My voice, as tender as it has it has ever been, “Fly, Ohime-sama? Cum, my love? Cum for ‘We’?”

I have no idea if she heard me. Her head snaps back as her Venus mons springs its trap on my fingers, gripping and tightening, crushing and locking them, with just enough movement to press and release at the ceiling of her 'cave'. Lightly, slowly, delicately I let my fingers pinch her nipple.

Her face is beyond beautiful, giving me a glimpse of Divinity. Her song is literally that: a laughing aria infused with joy and pleasure, a series of notes from Heaven, all in laughter. Not a word said, and not a word sung -- Miku cums as a passion play of glee, wearing a smile, her eyes open even as tears fly, her quivering shuddered spasms of bliss as her choreography, and the bursting dam of her cunny's honeyed wine the only addition instrumentation. A wave of nectar descends from the fountain of her femaleness, coating my toes and ankles. A second, mixed with her laughter, her song of joy, goes just as far. A third to just above my knee, a fourth and fifth to her inner thighs, and a sixth coats my wrist, palm, and fingers.

I have never seen anything so beautiful, I have never heard anything so powerful, I have never imagined anything more glorious than Miku in the throes of pleasure, wracked with spasms and paroxysms and thundering jerks of bliss. Even gasping for air, Atalanta chasing down golden apples of composure, she is still laughing, still crying, her eyes still locked on mine. I wait for her to blink to try and taste her sweet, sweet nectar, but she moves just at the last second and I inadvertently touch her cunny's shy, sensitive inhabitant. A little minuet of giggles and a few droplets of dew, a little bonus on my fingers as I finally taste her, a blend of sweetnesses and sacred, Divine perfections. I'm lost in all of it, my own need most certainly growing, and feeling her upon me and on me, held by me and holding me, and seeing my eyes reflected in hers, I can't help but join her in sharing a gentle, sublime smile.

***

I'm chasing my mind back, chasing my pulse back, trying to retake control of my breathing. Cradled like this, held so securely even with so much chaos hitting all of me at once, combining in ways I never knew possible, set alight by parts of me I didn't know would cause me to... react... like I did... all as Luka hasn't let go, hasn't moved, looking like she might not have even blinked.

“I... uhmm... wow? I need a moment...” I say lamely, but to see her reaction, it's like Luka found all seven words to be intelligent, even eloquent. I lean up for a moment and kiss her nose. “‘Boop!’ to ka?” I giggle as she takes my hand and kisses each knuckle. “Was I...?”

“Perfect, Ohime-sama. You... wow. I need a moment...”

With a mock pout, moving from sitting in her lap to lay upon my side, helping her to do the same, chest to chest, I am wide awake and completely exhausted, my leg just slightly between Luka's, the slightest movements making perfect noises. I brush her hair back from her cheek, lost in how perfect it feels to do something so simple. She moves a little closer, pulling me tighter. My lips just find hers, just as one hand drapes over her waist, a move she mirrors, my other hand lightly folded to hold hers. I drag my toes along her sole, heel to arch, slowly, and from arch to instep, slowly, and from instep to ball, ball to toes, just to give her a top to bottom show of everything.

“Thank you for finding me,” is the first thing I can think of saying. Well, not quite ‘think’... the words just tumble out, feeling, sounding, even tasting right. A kiss, simple, light, long. I realize that Luka must be thinking of her own words, must be trying to phrase everything just so, trying to convey it all without even one wrong breath.

I know there's something I can do, to help her. I can lead her there. But I could also help her another way, a better way, a sweeter way. I keep her held to me, my aquamagreen and her cotton candy hair this explosion of color framing us, Caribbean blue on Caribbean blue, cream skin on almost alabaster, a mezzo and a ‘true’ soprano holding and held, our song a silent one played only through touches and looks and breathing.

Her eyelids look so heavy, fighting to stay open, and with this little yawn, she pulls me closer to her. I yawn, almost identically as long, but definitely louder, and we’re both fighting for sleep to wait, fighting to keep this gaze going, Caribbean blue to Caribbean blue. It’s to the fraction of a second, her eyes closing, mine doing the same, and like my arms and legs around her, like her arms and legs around me, and our blanket, and the moment, we’re cocooned together, held and holding, and to the fraction of a second, to an identical moment in time, we sigh, smiling, surrendering to sleep.

### END OF TRACK 01 ###


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